Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SEVERN-TRENT WATER AUTHORITY BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

To be considered tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRY

British Steel Corporation

Mr. Crowther: asked the Secretary of State for Industry when he will next meet the chairman of the British Steel Corporation.

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Industry when he proposes next to meet the chairman of the British Steel Corporation.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Sir Keith Joseph): I have frequent contact with the chairman.

Mr. Crowther: When the right hon. Gentleman next meets the chairman, will he give a firm assurance that the Government will not be denationalising the Rotherham works or any other profitable establishment of the BSC? Is he aware that there is anxiety among steel workers in my constituency about that possibility in view of the well-known Conservative doctrine that anything that makes a profit should be privately owned?

Sir K. Joseph: We certainly do not intend any attempt at wholesale denationalisation in the steel industry.

Mr. Jones: When the Secretary of State next meets Sir Charles Villiers, will he confess that it was unwise of him to put the chairman under duress by hustling and dictating behind closed doors on steel matters, particularly on the Shotton issue? Will the right hon. Gentleman please urge a rethink on the fate of steel making at Shotton, bearing in mind the bludgeoning that the social fabric of the area will receive if the 7,000 redundancies take place? Will he understand that in my area the comunity has no confidence in his handling of steel matters and believes that he has as little capability in that direction as Count Dracula would have in running a blood transfusion service?

Sir K. Joseph: The previous Government said that the steel corporation must become viable and that capacity must move into line with demand. We are saying the same thing. We debated the position at Shotton the other day.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: When my right hon. Friend next meets the chairman, will he call to his attention the extreme importance of new coke ovens to the viability of iron making at Distington, in the Workington area?

Sir K. Joseph: Management is for the board of the steel corporation. I shall see that my hon. Friend's question is passed to the board.

Mr. Hooley: Is the Secretary of State aware that the target of a financial break-even by March next year is totally ridiculous? Will he revise that target and give an assurance that the BSC will have sufficient financial assistance to maintain its important industry over the next few years?

Sir K. Joseph: The target is difficult, but not impossible.

National Enterprise Board

Mr. Buchan: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he is now in a position to make a statement regarding any plans he may have for the denationalisation or withdrawal of public financial support for any of the following National Enterprise Board assisted companies:

Computer Analysts and Programmers Ltd., Computer and Systems Engineering Ltd., Data Recording Instrument Co. Ltd., Ferranti, International Computers Ltd., Inmos Ltd., Insac Data Systems Ltd., Systems Designers Ltd., Systems Programming Holdings Ltd. and Systime Ltd.

Mr. loan Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he is yet in a position to announce his proposals regarding the future activities of the National Enterprise Board.

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Adam Butler): I refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend's statement of 19 July.

Mr. Buchan: It is precisely because of the right hon. Gentleman's statement that I am anxious about the situation. Is it the case that the Prime Minister has intervened in order to prevent the right hon. Gentleman's support of the microelectronics industry? Is it also the case that the future of the National Semi-conductors factory proposed for Greenock has been thrown into jeopardy? If the Prime Minister has intervened, has she not out-Heroded Herod in relation to the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Butler: The position was made clear by my right hon. Friend's statement. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down a specific question in regard to the companies to which he has referred.

Hon. Members: The hon. Gentleman has done so.

Mr. Ioan Evans: The right hon. Gentleman said in his statement that if the private sector is unable to provide a solution to a company's difficulties receivership will be the order of the day. The previous Tory Government saved Rolls-Royce, and a Labour Government saved British Leyland, from going into receivership. If such a situation were to arise again, would it be the Government's policy to allow Rolls-Royce or British Leyland to go into receivership? Does not the Minister realise that such a decision would involve not only the workers in those firms but thousands of small firms supplying component parts?

Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend made the position clear. He said that receivership would be the normal practice.


In exceptional cases—and I take it that the examples given by the hon. Gentleman would fall into that category—other circumstances would arise.

Mr. Grylls: Does my hon. Friend accept that there are many who believe that the Inmos and Nexos projects are technically and commercially rather dubious? My right hon. Friend has said that there is a contract with Inmos, but will he think again? As only £6 million has so far been spent on that contract, would it not be better to break it and meet the penalty clause rather than to throw good money after bad, which is what many people believe will happen?

Mr. Butler: I know that my hon. Friend is expressing the concern of many people about the commercial viability of Inmos, but on the other hand my right hon. Friend made it clear that there is a contractual commitment towards Inmos of £25 million, and the intention is that the NEB should review that project at the appropriate time.

Mr. McNamara: In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans), the hon. Gentleman spoke about other factors to be taken into consideration. Why were those other factors not taken into consideration with regard to British Tanners? Why are nearly 1,000 of my constituents threatened with unemployment because of the Government's failure to support what had become a viable concern? Why will not the Government give the necessary money to ensure that the jobs of my constituents in an area of very heavy unemployment with grievous regional problems can be maintained rather than letting these people go on the dole or the scrap heap?

Mr. Butler: The hon. Gentleman rightly expresses the anxiety which I know exists in his constituency and other areas where there are factories of this company. Negotiations about the future of the company had broken down and there was no alternative but for the management to seek receivership. At the moment, various negotiations are taking place, and there is a hope that at least part of the company will be saved and will go on to a prosperous future, which is what is really needed.

Mr. Renton: I appreciate the difficulties of my hon. Friend the Minister of

State and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in not wishing to make any statement that will be damaging to the future of Inmos. Does not my hon. Friend think that the investment of the NEB and therefore the British investment in Inmos is a question of too little too late, and that it would therefore be better to invest in the application of microprocessors rather than in their manufacture?

Mr. Butler: There is considerable investment in all sectors in microprocessors. On the question of Inmos, I can add nothing to what my right hon. Friend has said and to what I have just said.

Dr. Bray: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the doubt cast over the future of the National Semi-conductors works in Scotland as a result of recent announcements by the Government about their regional policy makes it all the more necessary to go ahead with the Inmos project, and as quickly as possible? Is the hon. Gentleman further aware that there are already bottlenecks in supply to some key integrated circuits in this country and that it is imperative that we have our own capacity?

Mr. Butler: The problem I find is that there is a great number of advisers on this subject all holding different views. We have made our position clear on our general policy towards this matter.

Mr. John Silkin: As my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) could hardly have been more specific in his question 2, may I ask how many questions in exactly the same form does the hon. Gentleman expect to receive before he will properly answer? Does not he realise that a very large number of people and a very important sector of the economy are in a state of total uncertainty because of the Secretary of State's drift?

Mr. Butler: I am still unable to find the company mentioned by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) in his supplementary question.

Mr. Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the highly unsatisfactory nature of the reply to a highly specific question, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on


the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Small Businesses

Mr. Renton: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what action he proposes to take with regard to the various recommendations to assist small businesses made in the interim report of the Wilson committee.

Mr. Bright: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what plans he has to encourage start-ups of small businesses.

Sir Keith Joseph: We are consulting about the interim report of the Wilson committee, and meanwhile have begun to make risk-taking more worthwhile and to remove obstacles to growth.

Mr. Renton: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that, in order to encourage small businesses, it is really unnecessary to create any more new institutions for the purpose, but that it is necessary to encourage private investors—managers, employees, partners, members of the family—to provide risk capital for small new businesses? If my right hon. Friend agrees, how does he propose to cause this to happen?

Sir K. Joseph: The answer is "Yes" to both parts of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. The Budget was the first step towards achievement of that objective.

Mr. Bright: Is my right hon. Friend aware that very successful loan guarantee schemes are operated in the United States and Canada? Will the Department study them with a view perhaps to introducing a similar scheme in this country?

Sir K. Joseph: My Department keeps in touch with processes and activities such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend and we can consider any one of them that seems suitable.

Mr. Cryer: Is not the increase in the minimum lending rate and the high interest rates most damaging to small businesses? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the sudden and dramatic ending of the small firms employment subsidy has also caused cash flow problems for many small firms? Does he not also agree that, if he is considering a small firms loan guarantee system, he should perhaps intervene in the market?

Sir K. Joseph: I said that we could consider any method that we discovered abroad. I did not say that the Government had decided to initiate any such process. The rise in the MLR is damaging to all businesses, but it is one of the results of the inheritance we received from the Labour Government.

Dr. John Cunningham: Does not the Secretary of State recognise that increasing the burden of value added tax, increasing the limits on borrowing and reducing the assistance to small firms under his regional assistance statement last week will all make it more and not less difficult for small firms to develop and prosper? How does that situation square with the much-vaunted commitment in the Tory manifesto actively to improve conditions for small businesses? The Wilson committee made some recommendations which were widely welcomed in the City. Are they not worthy of greater consideration than the right hon. Gentleman has apparently given them?

Sir K. Joseph: The Labour Government left excessive public spending, excessive borrowing and excessive direct taxation. The cure of all three problems is essential to the vitality of the economy.

North-East England

Mr. Dormand: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will make a statement on his recent visit to the North-East of England.

Sir Keith Joseph: The listening, discussing and visiting were helpful to me. I found much agreement that enterprise and competitiveness are important.

Mr. Dormand: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the North-East his visit was regarded as a cosmetic farce and that the lack of serious discussion has caused great annoyance, not least among the trade unions? In the light of the damage that his regional policy statement has done—to say nothing of the damage that will be done by his statement on shipbuilding this afternoon—will he now consider the establishment of a Northern development agency, which has been agreed by the CBI and the TUC in the North—perhaps the only thing they have ever agreed upon?

Sir K. Joseph: I think that the people of the North-East should take some credit


for persuading me that the grants under the regional development scheme should remain the same in the special development areas.

Mr. Radice: How much extra unemployment will be created in the Northern region by the measures announced by the right hon. Gentleman last week?

Sir K. Joseph: The intellectually honest answer I can give is "None", and I shall explain why in tomorrow's debate.

Post Office

Mr. William Clark: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he is satisfied with the present structure of the Post Office.

Sir Keith Joseph: I am aware of the need to remove uncertainties. We intend to resolve them before long.

Mr. Clark: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that from the economic point of view, and also from the business sense point of view, it would be as well to separate the telecommunications side of the Post Office from the postal side? Does he not further agree that if the State could have some sort of partnership with private enterprise it would lead to efficiency and further would give an opportunity for the workers in that nationalised industry to participate, because there is an anomaly in that someone working for the private sector has the opportunity to engage in share option schemes whereas that is not available to people working in nationalised industries?

Sir K. Joseph: I find compelling the arguments in the Carter report for splitting the Post Office. We are moving towards a conclusion on the issue. We are not contemplating a sale of the Post Office such as my hon. Friend seems to have in mind.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Carter report did not suggest that the telecommunications side should be hived off to private enterprise? It could be argued that there should be two public enterprises. Would he consider the fact that as the postal side is high in labour content and low in profitability, while telecomunications is low in labour content and high in technology and profitability, it would be

good, in the interests of business, if they were kept in the same enterprise?

Sir K. Joseph: That is the issue. I find the arguments in the Carter report compelling.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: As an alternative to my hon. Friend's suggestion, does my right hon. Friend remember how well the Post Office worked in the old days when a Postmaster-General was sitting on the Treasury Bench? If for ideological reasons on the Opposition Benches it is impossible to do what my hon. Friend suggests, would my right hon. Friend at least revert to the old system by which we could deal with, and question, the day-to-day management of this important business?

Sir K. Joseph: I would need a lot of convincing that day-to-day questioning of day-to-day management would improve the service to the consumer.

Mr. Les Huckfield: Will the Secretary of State disregard some of the carping from his own Benches? Will he accept from the Opposition side of the House that, by any international yardstick or comparison, the Post Office is efficient and competitive? Will he accept that, while it may be a small crumb of comfort that he is not intending to sell some parts of the Post Office, there is a great fear that on the equipment side he intends to introduce more foreign competition?

Sir K. Joseph: I thought that it was widespread common ground that, while the Post Office may or may not be more efficient and competitive than other similar services abroad, it is less than adequate for consumers in this country. There is a difference over what should be done about this situation, but I thought that the common ground was clear.

Shipbuilding and Ship Repairing Industry

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will now make a statement on the future of the shipbuilding and ship repairing industry.

Mr. Adam Butler: I shall be making a statement at the end of Question Time.

Mr. Mitchell: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman would prefer to wait, I shall call him after the statement.

Mr. Mitchell: indicated assent.

Regional Aid

Mr. Hill: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what examination he has made of the effectiveness of previous policies towards regional aid.

Sir Keith Joseph: I have read many studies by academics, and the recent publication of the Department of Industry.

Mr. Hill: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the regional aid policy from the Community that is based on per capita income and the need to update rundown industry is in line with the present drawing of his United Kingdom regional policy map? In other words, is my right hon. Friend able to confirm that the two regional policy aid maps are now as one?

Sir K. Joseph: Certainly the policy is not in conflict. But our policy remains what is called project based rather than employment based.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Does not the Secretary of State accept that depressed areas will be the first to suffer from the recent public expenditure cuts and cuts in regional investment? Does he also accept that they will be the last to benefit from any upsurge in private investment which the Government have prophesied? In these circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman take a fresh look at regional investment to see how he can try to maintain employment in areas already suffering unacceptably high levels of unemployment?

Sir K. Joseph: Regional development grants were carefully not cut, as a proportion of expenditure, in the areas most afflicted by poor prospects for the economy and employment.

Mr. Hardy: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that aid is to be withdrawn from the southern half of my constituency where unemployment is far higher than in the rest of the metropolitan borough, while, in the northern half, where prospects seem brighter, the area has been upgraded in status, although the rise is rather Irish in character?

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friends and I at the Department of Industry will be glad to listen to evidence suggesting that we have made an error in any particular case. But there is a coherent set of criteria lying behind the re-drawing of the map.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is general approval of his proposal to concentrate regional aid more closely than has been done hitherto? Will he give an assurance that in the event of a sudden change of circumstances, as will occur if steel making is closed at Shotton, he will be prepared to upgrade that area without delay?

Sir K. Joseph: We have said that we shall be prepared to consider a change of grading in such circumstances.

British Leyland

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he plans to meet the chairman of British Leyland before Parliament goes into its Summer Adjournment.

Mr. Adam Butler: My right hon. Friend meets the chairman of British Leyland as often as circumstances require.

Mr. Smith: When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State next meets the chairman of British Leyland, will he call his attention to the complaints of some West Midlands firms alleging that they are excluded from providing electrical equipment which is being obtained from Italy at a dearer rate? Will he stress to British Leyland that, in view of the large amount of finance put behind this company, it should buy British on every occasion unless there are good reasons for doing otherwise?

Mr. Butler: I shall take note of that point. I am certain that British Leyland will also take note of my hon. Friend's general point, with which I agree, although the company must buy in the best market available.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: When the Minister next meets the chairman of British Leyland, will he ask him—I do not always believe what I read in the press—whether it is true that a certain prominent politician has been given a brand new car to


enable him to drive a British car rather than a Datsun? This is not the sort of action that 600 Members of Parliament should encourage.

Mr. Butler: I am not aware of this report, but I am sure that this is a case of "If the cap fits, wear it".

Post Office Act

Dr. Edmund Marshall: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he will seek to repeal section 1 of the Post Office Act 1969.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Michael Marshall): Yes, Sir.

Dr. Marshall: I wonder whether that reply conveys the information that the hon. Gentleman wished to convey. Does he really mean that he wants to bring back the Postmaster-General?

Mr. Michael Marshall: We have no plans to do so.

Mr. Hordern: Has my hon. Friend seen a recent questionnaire sent by the Post Office to subscribers asking them to say whether they find telephone conversations boring, very boring, slightly boring or not at all boring? Is my hon. Friend aware that subscribers are paid about £2·50 for this information? Will he suggest to the Post Office chairman that the Post Office might find better things to do?

Mr. Michael Marshall: That is a matter for management.

Dr. Marshall: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether the Minister gave the answer that he intended to give to my question. If he did, in view of its unsatisfactory nature, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Regional Policy

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what reply he has made to the recent proposals of the Confederation of British Industry concerning the future of regional policy.

Sir Keith Joseph: I replied that I thought that the policy, when announced, would reveal much common ground.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the CBI, in one breath, said that it was opposed to the policies and in the next said that it agreed with them? Will he say what caused this overnight about-turn in opinion? Will he say whether the CBI agrees with the Secretary of State for Employment, who said this morning that these policies and others would lead to an increase in unemployment? What is the estimate of the increase in unemployment as a direct consequence of the right hon. Gentleman's policies and other policies of Government Ministers over the next 12 months or two years?

Sir K. Joseph: Perhaps the first reaction of the CBI was the result of reading an inaccurate newspaper leak and its considered reaction was the result of reading the full statement. I repeat that we do not expect unemployment to rise, except by a very small amount in one area, to be offset by a rise in jobs in the other areas, as I shall try to explain tomorrow.

Mr. Budgen: Is my right hon Friend aware that the changes in regional aid have been widely welcomed in the West Midlands, which has long resented the system by which it has paid its taxes and subsidised the bribes to encourage industry to go to other areas? Is he aware that, if there has been any criticism, it has been on the basis that the cuts in regional expenditure have been too small and too long delayed?

Sir K. Joseph: I am so aware.

Mr. John Evans: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that unemployment will rise or fall in the North-West as a result of his announcement on regional aid policy?

Sir K. Joseph: The change in policy on regional aid will make very little difference to the number of jobs in the assisted areas. In the North-West, so far as it is kept as a special development area, the rate of grant will remain the same.

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what evidence he has found during visits to the regions that there is scope for change in current policies for regional assistance.

Mr. John Mackay: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what evidence he has found during visits to the regions that there is scope for change in current policies for regional assistance.

Sir Keith Joseph: My visits gave me evidence of the need to focus taxpayers' help more than previously and confirmed my view that redistributing taxpayers' money will not in itself close the gap between the different parts of the country.

Mr. Carlisle: Although I welcome that restriction in the geographical spread of the intermediate areas, and hence the abolition of many anomalies, I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend could explain, first, in what circumstances he would envisage in his special review that an intermediate area to be abolished in 1982 could retain its intermediate area status and, second, what criteria he will use in approving for grant a project in an intermediate area.

Sir K. Joseph: I must emphasise that the review is contemplated only in those areas which have been downgraded by more than one step and which cease as a result to be assisted areas. We shall consider special regional selective assistance on more selective criteria than obtain at present.

Mr. Strang: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his decision to downgrade the Edinburgh travel-to-work area by more than one step has been roundly condemned by both sides of industry and is in sharp contrast to statements by Conservative spokesmen during the last election? Will he at least have the intellectual honesty to admit that this is bound to mean that there will be fewer rather than more jobs in the Edinburgh area in the years ahead?

Sir K. Joseph: I do not think that it is possible, intellectually, to make such an assertion. If my hon. Friends and I have made a wrong judgment because we have not grasped all the criteria in any area, we are very ready to listen.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Can my right hon. Friend explain how he expects to save £50 million in the current financial year and, I think, £100 million next year when the upgrading of some areas will antecede the downgrading of others?

Also, is section 7 assistance subject to cash limits?

Sir K. Joseph: The threshold is being increased at once; that produces an immediate saving. Section 7 assistance will be subject to public expenditure limits.

Post Office

Mr. Neubert: asked the Secretary of State for Industry when he expects next to meet the chairman of the Post Office.

Mr. Michael Marshall: My right hon. Friend will be meeting Sir William Barlow and members of the Post Office board this evening.

Mr. Neubert: In the four weeks since our right hon. Friend answered questions on this subject, has there been any progress at all in overcoming the resistance to the employment of part-time and casual staff in the Post Office? Is it not unacceptable that, when the Post Office attributes many of the serious postal delays to the lack of sufficient staff, there should be this obstacle to an obvious solution?

Mr. Marshall: The Government certainly regret that the Union of Post Office Workers was unable to accept this proposal when it was recommended to it by its executive. We hope that there will yet be further consideration of this matter.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: When the Secretary of State meets the chairman of the Post Office tonight, will he point out to him the fact that Ministers of the Crown have always replied to letters from hon. Members and that he should not adopt the attitude that because he gets so many letters of complaint from hon. Members he does not have time to answer them? Is it not about time that the chairman realised that Members of Parliament, like the chairman, get their salaries from the workers and the people who subscribe to the Post Office, and that if they complain they want their Members of Parliament to get replies from him and not from the monkey on the organ?

Mr. Marshall: The hon. Member has already written to us on this matter and these views have been passed on to the chairman. However, I must reaffirm our


confidence in Sir William Barlow in handling the difficult tasks that face him.

Mr. Michael Brown: Will my hon. Friend accept that if the chairman of the Post Office Corporation wishes to retain the confidence of the general public my right hon. Friend should remind him this evening that it does not help to suggest that the public should be patient? My hon. Friend will recall that I called upon the general public to show their total impatience with the chairman.

Mr. Marshall: I am sure that my right hon. Friend has noted my hon. Friend's views.

Mr. Les Huckfield: Does the Secretary of State intend to tell the chairman tonight what the hon. Gentleman could not tell the House today? Does he, in fact, intend to bring back the office of Postmaster-General, as he suggested in replying on question 13—or did the hon. Gentleman simply turn to the wrong page?

Mr. Marshall: The previous legislation referred to in that question has lapsed, so the first question did not arise. Therefore, the answer that I gave to question 13 was correct, and the Government have no proposals to bring back the office of Postmaster-General.

Titanium

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will make a statement on his negotiations with ICI to retain a British titanium capacity.

Mr. Michael Marshall: The maintenance of supplies of titanium is primarily a matter for the users of this material and potential suppliers.

Mr. Dalyell: Is it Government policy to have a titanium capacity?

Mr. Marshall: I am sure that it would be valuable to have such capacity, but the best method of achieving it is a matter for discussion and discussions are proceeding.

Mr. Hooley: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Government have no responsibility for essential raw materials for British industry? Is he aware that this is an essential raw material in high technology industries?

Mr. Marshall: The prime responsibility in this matter rests with Rolls-Royce, which must assure itself of these supplies. There are also other opportunities with other European users, and I believe that there may be scope for collaborative ventures. Certainly a wide range of options is open.

Dr. John Cunningham: Did not the Secretary of State say in his recent statement about the NEB that this was an important matter? If so, is not the Under-Secretary's answer inadequate? Apart from being industrially important, is not this material strategically important? Is there not a defence importance in particular which should not be so lightly dismissed?

Mr. Marshall: I do not believe that in any respect I have dismissed these matters. They are important issues, but, as I said, there is a wide range of possibilities which should be explored. We believe that a commercial solution is the best approach rather than looking to the NEB.

Mr. Grylls: May I congratulate my hon. Friend on his caution in this matter and urge him to continue to be cautious and not allow the Government to be rushed into providing assistance here?

Mr. Marshall: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. His enthusiasm for and 
interest in these matters is well known to the House.

Manufacturing Industry

Mr. Peter Lloyd: asked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he is satisfied with the present level of productivity in manufacturing industry.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. David Mitchell): No, Sir.

Mr. Lloyd: Does my hon. Friend agree that if the trade unions pressed their employers to increase productivity as successfully as they press them to increase money wages their members would be much better off in real terms and unemployment would be much lower?

Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend has highlighted an important factor. The answer is "Yes".

Mr. Stokes: Will my hon. Friend lose no opportunity to point out, particularly during the recess, that unless we can


increase production and productivity, no amount of oil will in the end save us from ruin?

Mr. Mitchell: I shall certainly do that. The key to productivity lies, not with the Government, but with management and work forces.

Miss Boothroyd: What response will the Minister give to foundry owners who, later this week, will be meeting the sector working party to seek Government assistance to reduce productivity by reducing the work force of 25,000 in the next few years?

Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Lady has misunderstood the purpose of the meeting. It certainly is not in order to reduce productivity.

Motivation Programmes

Mr. Whitney: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he is aware of the success of many motivation programmes introduced into private industry; and whether he will encourage public sector industries to take a more positive attitude to such programmes.

Mr. Adam Butler: It is for the managements of the public sector industries to decide whether to propose the introduction of schemes of this kind. I am anxious, nevertheless, that the managers and staff of the corporations should be given every encouragement to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Mr. Whitney: Will my hon. Friend urge those who are responsible for the public sector industries to study positively the motivation programmes which have achieved great success in private industry and which have every prospect of achieving similar success in the public sector?

Mr. Butler: A wide range of motivation programmes and ideas are available. Schemes are being tried in many corporations. I can assure my hon. Friend that such schemes are encouraged by Ministers.

Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister accept that the motivation of all the people in the public sector industries is severely damaged by Ministers coming to the House and making announcements about selling off, or threatening to sell off, various sections of public sector industries? Does he agree that the Conservative Government have no mandate

to wreck British industry and that these threats will be resisted inside and outside the House? Does the Minister agree that the motivation for the preservation of jobs and national assets is strong among the trade union members of those industries?

Mr. Butler: I draw the hon. Member's attention to the Conservative Party manifesto for the last election in which we stated clearly that we would offer to sell the nationalised industries back into private ownership and offer shares to employees. In that offer lies considerable motivation for employees.

National Enterprise Board

Dr. McDonald: asked the Secretary of State for Industry when he expects next to meet the chairman of the National Enterprise Board.

Mr. Adam Butler: My right hon. Friend meets the chairman frequently.

Dr. McDonald: In view of the report in today's Financial Times that many companies face either severe financial difficulties or collapse in the coming months, will the Minister encourage the National Enterprise Board to take over or to assist such companies? Alternatively, will the Government simply allow them to go to the wall with the consequent loss of jobs?

Mr. Butler: I am not sure to which report the hon. Lady refers. The present state of British industry is due to the past five years of Labour government.

Mr. Hal Miller: At the Minister's next meeting with the chairman of the NEB, will he discuss the corporate plan for British Leyland which was lodged in the Library on 2 April? Does he expect that there will be any changes in that plan as a result of Government decisions?

Mr. Butler: The corporate plan for 1978 has been discussed. We shall in due course be discussing the corporate plan for 1979. Decisions for that period will have to be made then.

Mr. Christopher Price: What is the Government's intention in relation to United Medical Enterprises, which is owned by the NEB? Is the Minister aware that its previous managing director


has gone to work for its principal American competitor? Do the Government intend to sell that company into foreign hands?

Mr. Butler: The future of that company is a matter for the NEB management, working within the policy which was enunciated recently in the House by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Mr. John Evans: When the Minister next meets the chairman of the NEB, will he ask him to agree with the previous Government's policy that Inmos should build four production units for microprocessors in assisted areas of the United Kingdom?

Mr. Butler: The future of Inmos and the location of plant is a matter for the NEB. We have made it clear that there is a contractual commitment to invest money in that company. Therefore, I imagine that the decisions can go ahead.

Post Office

Mr. Archie Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what measures he is considering to improve productivity in the Post Office.

Mr. Michael Marshall: Specific measures to improve productivity are for the management of the Post Office. My right hon. Friend has, however, made clear his view that there is scope for considerable improvement in the efficiency of the postal business, and he is keeping in close touch with the chairman on this matter.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the Under-Secretary aware of the growing public disquiet over the charges imposed by the Post Office and the service which it provides? Is he aware that many of my hon. Friends and I think that competition is the only answer if the Post Office is to provide the service that is needed? Has my hon. Friend given thought to some of the less competitive forms of the postal service in distant parts of the country where the Post Office claims that it operates at a loss?

Mr. Marshall: Since I have to sort out letters from hon. Members from all parts of the country, I am aware of the problems involved. My right hon.

Friend will bear all considerations in mind when considering the question of the postal monopoly.

Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister accept that one of the troubles in the Post Office is caused by the 10,000 vacancies for postmen and other workers? When the Minister meets the chairman of the Post Office, will he encourage him to pay higher wages and provide better working conditions in order to fill those vacancies?

Mr. Marshall: The Government are well aware of the problem involved in trying to attract workers to fill those vacancies. Achieving the right balance is difficult and it is a matter for the Post Office management.

Mr. Cormack: Is my hon. Friend aware that those of us who rely on the postal service find it almost impossible to keep in close touch with anybody? Will he ask the chairman of the Post Office to abolish, for the time being, the ridiculous two-tier system since everything now goes second class?

Mr. Marshall: I shall bear that suggestion in mind.

South Yorkshire (Advance Factories)

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will list the advance factories which are now under construction in the South Yorkshire area; and if he will now give instructions for another advance factory to be built in the Dearne Valley constituency.

Mr. David Mitchell: One factory is under construction at Hellaby, Rotherham. Land is still being sought for a factory at Mexborough.

Mr. Wainwright: Does the Under-Secretary accept that it is no good building advance factories unless jobs are created? Is he aware that, in spite of an advance factory being built in Denaby, it took years to persuade business people to go there and take advantage of it? Only one small business went there and it created only 16 jobs. Will the Minister ensure that more factories are built in that area and that more jobs are created? Is he aware that the unemployment rate in the Dearne Valley district has been


10 per cent. for years? Does he agree that Tory Party philosophy has never lowered that rate?

Mr. Mitchell: It is not a question of factories alone. There are vacant factories not far away. It is important to create a climate in which people will set up businesses and occupy those factories. The failure in the past was the responsibility of the Labour Party.

Union of Post Office Workers

Mr. John Townend: asked the Secretary of State for Industry when he expects to meet Mr. Tom Jackson, general secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Industry when he expects next to meet Mr. Tom Jackson, general secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers.

Mr. Michael Marshall: My right hon. Friend met Mr. Jackson on 18 June. My hon. Friend the Minister of State met Mr. Jackson on 11 July. There are no immediate plans for further meetings.

Mr. Townend: When the Minister next meets Mr. Jackson, will he draw to his attention the disclosures in the Daily Mirror about the Mount Pleasant post office which was described as a skivers' paradise, with fiddles on overtime and drinking and gambling on duty? Will he ask Mr. Jackson to co-operate with the management in overcoming those abuses?

Mr. Marshall: I am sure that those matters will be borne in mind.

Mr. Harry Ewing: When the Minister next meets Tom Jackson, will he explain to him that it is impossible to attract more people to work in the Post Office when workers' wages are being deliberately depressed? Will the hon. Gentleman ignore the total rubbish expounded by his hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend)?

Mr. Marshall: The hon. Member should play his part in urging the union to come to an agreement on the proposals which were recommended by the union's executive.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Is my hon. Friend aware that the greatest virtue of the Post

Office, in his lifetime and in mine until recently, has been its reliability? That has now been forfeited. In the circumstances, is not it time for a new start? Would it not be a good idea if the Post Office union got rid of its general secretary and my right hon. Friend fired the chairman of the Post Office?

Mr. Marshall: I think that it is helpful to remind the House that there are virtues here and that the picture varies from one part of the country to another. It is also right to pay tribute to those who have been trying to overcome the backlog, especially those who work in the Birmingham sorting office, where they have had bomb threats and other problems. But all these matters require a balance, and it is at that that we are looking.

Mr. John Silkin: When the Minister meets Mr. Tom Jackson, will he compliment him and the union on the extraordinarily good performance by the workers during the recent weekend when they worked to clear the backlog? Will the hon. Gentleman also congratulate Mr. Jackson on working in what is still the cheapest and best service in Europe?

Mr. Marshall: I have indicated already that we all recognise that there are some good parts of the story. We are trying to get the balance right in putting forward that story. However, there are problems within the union, and I believe that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House should support any efforts to resolve them.

SHOPLIFTING

Mr. Adley: asked the Attorney-General if he will request his noble Friend to convene a conference about sentencing policy on shoplifting.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Ian Percival): There have been not less than six sentencing conferences entirely devoted to this subject since January 1978, and such conferences will continue to be held either specifically or in conjunction with other sentencing problems.

Mr. Adley: I think that I heard what my hon. and learned Friend said. Is not he merely commenting, therefore, on the growing concern about this problem? Is he not aware that the courts are becoming increasingly confronted with people


of impeccable character who find themselves on shoplifting charges and that 70 per cent. of women on such charges are facing a court for the first time? In the light of what my hon. and learned Friend said, does not he feel that it is time for a full examination of the effect that the trading methods of self-service stores are having on the increase in the shoplifting statistics?

The Solicitor-General: Yes, of course. There is great concern about the matters about which my hon. Friend speaks. He was good enough recently to send to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General a booklet prepared by him and others on this subject entitled "Take it or leave it". It has been read with great interest. I was specially interested in what my hon. Friend and his colleagues said about the necessity to sort out the persistent and deliberate offender from the absent-minded and confused. Of course, these matters cause great concern, and the Home Office already has made some research into them. It is hoped that its results will be published quite shortly.

Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: On a more practical note, does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree with the recommendations of the National Consumer Protection Council that supermarkets should be required by law to have an area where customers may leave their own shopping bags on arriving at the store and that it should also be mandatory for stores to provide receipts?

The Solicitor-General: Yes, I am aware of those problems. As long ago as 1973, a Home Office working party made specific recommendations on those aspects of the problem. Now the research unit set up by the Home Office has been inquiring into these matters and will be reporting very shortly.

Sir Anthony Meyer: Will my hon. and learned Friend deprecate the practice of certain stores of automatically prosecuting anyone accused of shoplifting within their premises? Will he state that it is really the function of the store manager to satisfy himself that the person concerned intended to take away goods without paying for them before prosecuting?

The Solicitor-General: Before prosecuting, the store has a duty to make such

a decision. However, the ultimate decision must be made by the court before which the proceedings are brought. If proceedings are wrongly brought, the court has the power to deal with matters by way of costs.

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

Mr. Cryer: asked the Attorney-General when he expects next to meet the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The Attorney-General (Sir Michael Havers): After he and I have returned from our summer vacations.

Mr. Cryer: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman condemn the sordid arrangement by which the Daily Telegraph apparently was prepared to pay witnesses, which could be said to induce a tendency towards conviction? Will he clarify the position about the remarks made in the other place by Lord Hartwell, the proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, in which he claimed that the arrangements had the approval of the DPP's office? Will he now condemn Lord Hartwell for misleading the House of Lords and the public at large, or defend or modify his own written answer last week?

The Attorney-General: I made my decision quite clear in my answer to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) on 18 July. It is important to remember that there are three people concerned in this matter. There is the member from the Director's office, who made a contemporaneous note which was seen on the same day by the Director of Public Prosecutions. There is the solicitor who communicated with him in the terms which I set out in my written answer last week. The third person at the other end of the line, who was not in any direct contact with the DPP, is Lord Hartwell. Nothing which I intended to say in that written answer suggested that Lord Hartwell was not telling the truth to the House of Lords as he knew it.

Mr. John Morris: In view of the subsequent statement made on behalf of Lord Hartwell, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman clarify the position once and for all? No one wishes to be unfair to any of the parties in this matter.


In view of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's recent declaration that he would prefer the buying of witnesses' stories to be dealt with in the first instance by the Press Council, and in view now of the obvious breach of the declaration of principles of a few years ago, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider the position and introduce legislation to deal with the matter?

The Attorney-General: No, Sir. I do not intend to introduce or to advise the Government to introduce legislation until the Press Council has had a chance to deal with this. The Press Council has now received detailed documentation from the Director of Public Prosecutions and from the lawyers representing the various defendants who are co-operating with the Press Council and providing detailed statements. The Press Council is in the process of getting in touch with the newspapers themselves to obtain their version of the events. There is a considerable mass of papers to be examined, and the Press Council assures me that every step is being taken to expedite an inquiry consistent with the need for a proper regard for natural justice.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Need there have been any confusion at all if Lord Hartwell had been bound by the rulings of the Press Council? Did not he know what was right without having to telephone the Director's office? Does not it indicate that the Press Council is a toothless animal which needs teeth?

The Attorney-General: I have made my position clear. It was not for Lord Hartwell to telephone the Director's office. He had a solicitor who was acting on behalf of Mr. Bessell and who gave him certain advice which may have been right or may have been wrong.

Oral Answers to Questions — WITNESSES (IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION)

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Attorney-General what is his policy for granting witnesses immunity from prosecution.

The Attorney-General: My policy and that of the Director of Public Prosecutions is to grant immunity from prosecution only in those rare instances

when we are satisfied that to do so would be in the interests of the administration of justice and the public interest generally. Each case is considered on its own facts and merits.

Mr. Price: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think in retrospect that the decision to grant immunity to Mr. Bessell was a mistake? Will he bear in mind in future, when considering whether immunity should be granted, that it might be granted on certain conditions so that those to whom it is granted do not abuse it by taking vast fees from newspapers to make money out of the trials in which they are to give evidence?

The Attorney-General: When immunity was granted to Mr. Bessell, whatever the circumstances, I did not occupy my present office. I have not considered, and have not been shown, the papers which led to that decision. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that to grant immunity in order to enable a witness to make sums of money is one matter which would be taken into account and, if I were deciding, it would certainly influence me in granting such immunity.

Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: In view of the clear strictures of Lord Justice Lawton on the use by the Crown of "supergrasses", does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that immunity from criminal process should be granted only in the most exceptional cases and should never appear to be tantamount to a bribe?

The Attorney-General: On the matter of the supergrass that the hon. and learned Gentleman is considering—I imagine it is the case of Mr. Lowe—I remind him of what my predecessor said:
Having studied the case of Charles Thomas Lowe, I am satisfied with the way in which the Director of Public Prosecutions discharged his duty in that case."—[Official Report, 18 April 1978; Vol. 948, c. 131.]
I have to tell the hon. and learned Gentleman that I do not know the facts which led to that decision. On the other hand, although it is an unpleasant fact of life, there are now and again occasions on which, in order to achieve convictions against really bad villains, it is necessary to use people who are termed supergrasses.

BRITISH AEROSPACE AND BRITISH SHIPBUILDERS

The Secretary of State for Industry (Sir Keith Joseph): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on the future financial structure of British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders.
Since taking office we have carefully considered the circumstances of these industries, in the light of the undertaking, set out in our manifesto, to introduce private ownership.
I turn first to aerospace. British Aerospace, with its spread of interests embracing civil and military aircraft as well as guided weapons and space systems, makes a substantial contribution to both our national economy and our national defence. Despite the fierce competition in this international industry, I am confident that our industry has the talents and skills to flourish. In the years ahead it will generate large internal funds, but substantial external funds will also be required. I have therefore considered how these demands may best be financed. As part of these considerations, my colleagues and I have consulted, among others, the board of British Aerospace and the trade unions representing those employed in the industry.
The Government propose that British Aerospace should in future operate within the framework of the Companies Acts. The ownership of the industry will therefore be transferred from the present statutory corporation to a company incorporated under the Companies Acts. Initially, the shares in that company will be held by the Government, which will then make shares available to private ownership. Employees will be given a special opportunity to buy shares. The Government intend to retain a shareholding of about half.
The change to company status will not result in any alteration to the present business; its assets, liabilities and contracts will all be transferred to the new company. I would also hope to secure continuity in management at board level.
The Government look to the company to obtain the external funds it needs from commercial sources, although it will retain the power to provide funds on commercial terms, if this proves neces-

sary. On that basis, we shall not expect to intervene in the administration of the company as a commercial concern.
Legislation will be introduced before Christmas to permit these policies to be carried out. We have considered a number of alternative courses, including the introduction of private capital into the dynamics business. The legislation that the Government will be bringing before the House would not exclude this, but the Government's strong preference is to maintain the present structure of the industry.
I have also considered whether a comparable financial reconstruction might be made for British Shipbuilders. In principle, I should have liked to introduce private sector finance to this industry at the same time. I have concluded, however, that in the light of the particular problems of the industry and the consequent difficulty of predicting its future size—about which my hon. Friend the Minister of State is to make a statement later today—this is not the right time. The Government have therefore decided not to bring forward measures at the moment to introduce private sector finance to the shipbuilding industry.

Mr. John Silkin: Before I question the Secretary of State, may I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the House has a right to hear from him—not from his hon. Friend the Minister of State—what he intends to do about shipbuilding? Is the Secretary of State too sensitive to contemplate the impact of his political philosophy on the livelihood of other people? Does he not realise that the House wants to hear the butcher, not the butcher's boy?

Sir K. Joseph: I think that the House will respect my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has spent a great deal of time—we cannot all devote the same amount of time, in a team, to each set of problems—to visiting and meeting the people concerned in the shipbuilding industry. The House will see from his statement and his replies that he is putting forward the policy of the Government, with which, of course, I totally identify myself.

Mr. Silkin: In spite of that, in my view the Secretary of State should have made the statement himself. He has attempted to give the House the impression that the


trade unions have agreed almost enthusiastically with his proposals with regard to British Aerospace. Is not that untrue?
Secondly, is it not true that without Government funds there would be no British Aerospace industry at this moment?
Thirdly, in this new structure is not the Secretary of State already moving to the day when we have lost our manufacturing capacity and have become merely subcontractors to the Americans?
Finally, will the Secretary of State note that we on the Labour Benches believe that the strengthening, not the weakening, of the publicly owned industries is vital to the health of the economy and that the question of restoring these assets to public ownership, and on what basis, will be the subject of urgent consideration by the Labour Party in the coming months?

Sir K. Joseph: I did not try to give a false impression about the trade unions' position. I said that my hon. Friend had consulted them. One of the unions is opposed, on political grounds, to denationalisation, and particularly hopes that the dynamics option, to which I referred, will not be followed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Which one?"] The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. The other union—the staff association—would prefer to maintain the present structure, but my hon. Friends and I hope to persuade the membership of the unions—and, I hope, the unions as well—that it is in the interests of those who work in the industry, as well as in the interests of those who own the industry, namely, the taxpayers, that independence from Government decision-making should be introduced. It is a highly competitive, fiercely competitive, world. We believe that the commercial management of such an industry will produce more jobs, more secure jobs and better paid jobs, and a better service to the taxpayer.

Mr. Onslow: Disregarding the temper and tantrums form the Opposition and reverting to Britsh Aerospace, is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government's strong preference against any hiving off of dynamics will be welcome not only in the industry but in the House? The House will also welcome the Government's declared intention that projects such as the HS146 shall depend for their

future success on their market prospects and not on any subsidies from the taxpayers' purse. Will my right hon. Friend tell us a little more about what is meant by continuity of management? Does that include the early appointment of a chairman with some real business experience?

Sir K. Joseph: I would not want to make comments on individuals of the board, but I hope that we shall be able to retain a number of members of the board when the change occurs. The answer to the first two parts of my hon. Friend's question is "Yes, Sir".

Mr. Clinton Davis: Will the Minister indicate what proportion of shares he has in mind to allocate to employees or to enable employees to purchase? He completely omitted that in his statement. Is not this just another fig leaf—similar to the case of British Airways the other day—designed to hide another purely doctrinal spasm on behalf of the Conservative Government? Will he also indicate what sort of rewards will be available to the City slickers who will be employed in promoting the sale of these shares?

Sir K. Joseph: The proportion of shares to be allotted to employees has not yet been decided. The doctrinal spasm came from the Labour Benches.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: What progress have the Government made towards solving the conundrum of inducing private persons and corporations to invest in an undertaking which is in the control of directors not responsible to shareholders other than the State?

Sir K. Joseph: It is precisely that situation which we propose to alter by transfering the assets, contracts and liabilities to a Companies Act company.

Mr. Adley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have a regular meeting with the shop stewards of British Aerospace at Hurn? May I tell my right hon. Friend that one of the shop stewards told me a few weeks ago that what had happened since nationalisation—[Interruption.] The shop stewards at Hurn tend to speak one at a time, unlike Labour Members. One of them told me that all that had happened since nationalisation was that at Hurn they had replaced what he called the discipline of the boardroom with a vacuum. With the exception of a few


politically motivated trade unionists and the inevitable noises from the Opposition, is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be widespread welcome for a move which will be seen as adding strength to British Aerospace and its ability to compete in world markets? Will my right hon. Friend ascertain from the Leader of the Opposition whether it is likely to be the policy of the Labour Party to seek to confiscate without compensation in future?

Sir K. Joseph: Many who work in the industry will share the opinion that my hon. Friend has put forward.

Mr. Benn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that since the war under private ownership thousands of millions of pounds of public money have gone into the industry and that no civil or military aircraft in the world—for example, in France, Germany and America—would have been built without enormous sums of taxpayers' money? If he intends to continue that funding under the new system of ownership, to what extent can he call it a return to private enterprise?

Sir K. Joseph: I did not call it a return to private enterprise. If I had to describe it, I should call it a participation between public and private enterprise. I repeat that it is greatly to the advantage of the public as taxpayers and to those who work in the industry that investment and production decisions are made without the intervention of politicians, provided that the national interest is protected. It is true that defence contracts will be a large part of the business of British Aerospace when it is converted to a company. That will remain for the Government of the day to decide.

Mr. Stephen Ross: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my party welcomes in principle his decision, especially in respect of British Aerospace? However, we think that the Government should retain 51 per cent. of the holding and not around 50 per cent., to which he referred. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his attitude towards British Shipbuilders, which I believe to be correct, much as I regret the inclusion of some efficient companies in British Shipbuilders that should never have been nationalised in the first instance.

Sir K. Joseph: I shall bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's comments.

Mr. Robert Atkins: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that many of my constituents who work for the military aircraft division of British Aerospace will welcome his decision? Despite what Opposition Members say, will he remember that over 2,000 of the shop floor workers at the Preston factory signed a petition opposed to nationalisation when the nationalisation measure was being pushed through the House by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) and the Government of whom he was a part? How will the Government proceed in future with military aircraft projects and the selling of those aircraft to countries abroad where necessary and when required?

Sir K. Joseph: I do not think that any change in decision-making about defence contracts or sales is implied in the statement.

Mr. Palmer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement has already been specially made for the benefit of the citizens of Bristol by his hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Colvin) over the weekend? Will he explain why it is necessary to throw British Aerospace, which is now so successful, into a state of turmoil in pursuit of an abstract political doctrine which will not have the support of the unions in the industry?

Sir K. Joseph: I shall not ask why it was necessary to nationalise in the first place, because the object of this exercise is to ask me questions. I do not accept that turmoil is involved. I believe that the pattern proposed by the Government will be to the benefit of all concerned.

Mr. Murphy: Does my right hon. Friend agree that his statement will create greater stability in the industry and will get rid of the uncertainty that has been the cause of much discontent in recent years among those on the shop floor? Will he confirm that the HS146 project, which is of especial importance in my constituency, will be the subject of commercial decisions made by the new company?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes.

Mr. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, as his ideological claptrap increases and as the interests of the nation are put second, there is a growing opinion, especially in the ranks of the Labour movement, that when the next Labour Government take office we shall take back these national assets, in the interests of the British people, without paying enormous sums of compensation?

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman does not yet speak for his party.

Mr. Heffer: You wait and see, mate.

Mr. Grylls: Does my right hon. Friend accept that in reality British Shipbuilders is not one company but a conglomeration of independent yards, or what were independent yards? Once compensation has been paid, which has taken far too long, will my right hon. Friend be prepared to negotiate in due course with anyone interested in buying the warship building yards, which would leave British Shipbuilders free to concentrate on merchant shipbuilding?

Sir K. Joseph: We shall review the position from time to time. We have not discarded the idea of participation by the private sector in shipbuilding.

Mr. James Johnson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 5,000 constituents represented by hon. Members in this House in Hull and on the north bank of the Humber who work at what was formerly the Hawker Siddeley set-up at Brough, both management and those on the shop floor, are completely satisfied with the existing state of affairs? The right hon. Gentleman says that he has consulted the unions, but has he consulted each of the two main unions at Brough, the AUEW and the General and Municipal Workers Union? If so, what did they tell him?

Mr. English: The right hon. Gentleman did not even know that they were there.

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend the Minister of State consulted the CSEU, whose components include those who work in the industry.

Mr. Lawrence: What effect is this welcome step for British Aerospace likely to have on the public sector borrowing requirement?

Sir K. Joseph: It should have a beneficial effect.

Mr. Stott: If the right hon. Gentleman does not accept that his statement will cause turmoil within the industry, will he accept that it will cause unnecessary uncertainty within the industry? Is he aware that my constituents who work for British Aerospace at the Lostok factory in my constituency were in full support of the Labour Government's attempt to take the industry into public ownership? Will he guarantee them and the House that none of the shares that he is proposing to sell will go to foreign competitors?

Sir K. Joseph: No placing of shares in the industry will be permitted to foreign competitors, but individual foreigners will be free to buy individual—[Interruption.] I repeat, there will be a complete safeguard against the ownership of a significant tranche of the industry by a foreign competitor.

Mr. Hill: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement on British Aerospace. In the circumstances, will firms in the shipbuilding warship section, such as Vosper Thornycroft at Southampton, be given the opportunity to participate in some such scheme in the not-too-distant future?

Sir K. Joseph: We shall reconsider that option from time to time.

Mr. Skinner: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that his statement is a direct consequence of the tax cuts that we heard about a few weeks ago for the wealthy in our society, and a part of that same pay-off? Does he accept that a future Labour Government would be acting properly in taking back without compensation as about £5,000 million has now been invested by the taxpayer? Will he bear in mind that there will be those of us at Labour Party conferences and outside who will be arguing that case and urging trade union nominees on pension board committees not to invest any money in the shares that he is currently offering?

Sir K. Joseph: Comments such as those of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) will be responsible for any uncertainty that there is in the industry. But I suspect that the public will realise


that such monstrous behaviour as they both suggest to people who will have bought shares individually will not be contemplated by the Labour Party.

Mr. Wilkinson: Will my right hon. Friend accept from someone who has worked fairly recently both in the private enterprise aircraft manufacturing industry and briefly in British Aerospace itself that the work force of British Aerospace will be reassured that it is to remain an entity under its present management system and that it is to be a broadly diversified corporation of the kind directly comparable with successful companies in the United States?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Dalyell: Will the Secretary of State explain his answer to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Stott)? By what mechanism will it be impossible for foreign competitors to acquire shares?

Sir K. Joseph: The key factor is the control of the resulting Companies Act company which, under the legislation that we propose, will be, for that purpose, firmly in the hands of the Government.

Mr. Bagier: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a big difference in his approach towards the aerospace industry and shipbulding industry in his statement today? Will he say what is his criterion in deciding the different approaches? Is the reason that there is profitability in the aerospace industry, from which his friends will get money, but not in the shipbuilding industry? Is he laying down that criterion?

Sir K. Joseph: Part of the shipbuilding industry is profitable. It is the sheer amount of uncertainty in the shipbuilding industry—which will be explained by my hon. Friend later this afternoon to those who do not already realise it—that is the difference between the two.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Will my right hon. Friend say whether his action over British Aerospace is an earnest of his intention towards Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd.?

Sir K. Joseph: Rolls-Royce is not, alas, making a profit at the moment. I am not sure that I am correct on the

technical aspect. At the moment Rolls-Royce is not in an equivalent position to that of British Aerospace, although I hope that it will become so.

Mr. Hooley: Will the Secretary of State clarify his earlier replies about foreign interests acquiring shares in British Aerospace? Will the proposed legislation preclude foreign financial and commercial interests from obtaining a substantial stake in the new set-up in British Aerospace?

Sir K. Joseph: As investors, individual foreign shareholders will certainly be able to buy shares—but not as controllers and decision-makers.

Mr. Colvin: Would my right hon. Friend please send to the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) a copy of the Conservative Party election manifesto, which quite clearly he has not read and which stated that the Conservative Government would return British Aerospace to private ownership at the earliest opportunity? Would he confirm that the statement I made at the weekend—to which the hon. Gentleman referred and in which I expressed a hope that the so-called BP solution for returning British Aerospace to private ownership would be used, as with British Airways—was made not because I was privy to any special information but merely because I expected the fulfilment of yet another general election pledge, for which the Government had an overwhelming mandate from the British people?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: If the public interest in British Aerospace is to be protected, does not that mean that the private shareholding will also be protected? Does not that in turn mean that we shall create a new kind of shareholding in which the shareholder takes the profit but the taxpayer bears the loss, if there is one?

Sir K. Joseph: No. The prospect of profit and the risk of loss will affect all those who hold shares in the proposed company.

Mr. Cryer: Will the Secretary of State explain how our position as a member of the EEC affects the shareholding offer? Is it true that under the Treaty of Rome


there can be no limits placed on people who buy shares—so that there is a possibility that British Aerospace may be sold off to rival concerns?

Sir K. Joseph: No one contemplates a limit on the private ownership of shares. What must be guarded is the decision-making. The proposed legislation will ensure that no foreign decision-makers affect the control of the company.

Mr. Cormack: Is not it obvious that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and his cohorts on the Left are terrified of British workers buying shares in British industry?

Sir K. Joseph: Their attitude is a little obsolete.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that British workers share completely in the ownership of British Aerospace and the shipbuilding industry at present? Will he clarify his position on foreign investment? Has he thought through the implications for defence? As £5,000 million of public expenditure has been poured into these industries, does he say now that the profits will go to our foreign competitors?

Sir K. Joseph: Public ownership, in the sense of nationalisation, is not at all the same as public ownership in the sense of widespread share ownership.

Mr. Hordern: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in offering shares in British Aerospace to investors abroad, the Government will be following the interesting and excellent example set by the previous Government in offering a specific number of shares in British Petroleum to American investors?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir.

Mr. English: We have heard several of these statements about various industries. [HON. MEMBERS: "Only two."] Hon. Gentlemen forget the Budget. They obviously were not there.
The right hon. Gentleman will surely agree that all the statements omitted one factor. For what purpose will the capital receipts be used? The right hon. Gentleman is far too moral to wish to say to company directors that it is a criminal

offence to apply capital receipts to current expenditure and wish to belong to a Government who might conceivably be doing it.

Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor explained that as a once-only contribution to reducing the public sector borrowing requirement some disposals would be part of our strategy.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will the Minister visit Woodford and Chadderton, in Greater Manchester, and hear the opposition of the work force there to his proposals? Does he agree that it is risky to encourage someone to invest both their livelihood and their savings in the same enterprise?

Sir K. Joseph: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's second proposition. Nobody will force workers to invest their money in the shares.

Mr. John Silkin: Further to the question about the transfer of shares to foreign investors, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be able to put in a stipulation that prevents control going away. That may be possible. What is there to stop directors being appointed—as happens by large and powerful groups of shareholders—and therefore decision-making in the new British Aerospace being powerfully influenced by foreign companies?

Sir K. Joseph: Control can be prevented by use of Part II of the Industry Act 1975, by special provision in the company's articles of association and by the use of individual residual Government shareholdings.

Mr. Silkin: The right hon. Gentleman was not listening. He answered a splendid question—but it was not my question. My question is this: what is to stop a director being appointed by a group of foreign shareholders? Leave aside the question of control. Will that affect the way in which the company is being conducted in future?

Sir K. Joseph: The Government intend to retain a large shareholding. By both that and by the legislation—and by some of the legislation left to us by the last Government—there is no danger of foreign control.

SHIPBUILDING

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Adam Butler): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on shipbuilding.
One of the most serious and immediate industrial issues facing the Government on taking office was the state and prospects of merchant shipbuilding. The Government have now completed a review of the situation with British Shipbuilders and have had wide consultations with unions, private sector interests, the shipping industry and the EEC Commission. I am now in a position to inform the House of the situation and of the approach the Government propose to adopt. Plans for the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff will be made known separately by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Our consultations have fully confirmed the view of the last Government—and, indeed, of those working in the industry—that further contraction is inevitable, given the extreme severity of the world recession.
At the end of last year, British Shipbuilders put its plans for dealing with this grave situation to the previous Administration, advising, in effect, contraction in merchant shipbuilding to an annual rate of some 430,000 tons by March 1981, with a reduction of manpower to around 20,000. With the severe difficulties in securing new orders—only 230,000 tons in 1978—British Shipbuilders recognised at that time the magnitude of the task facing it in avoiding contraction below 430,000 tons, and the vital need to increase competitiveness as well as for recovery in the market.
So far this year, recovery has not taken place, and my consultations with British ship owners and others afford few grounds for optimism in that respect. Substantial over-capacity exists world-wide, and at present there appears to be no early prospect of recovery. I must warn the House that British Shipbuilders will find it very hard to sustain its target capacity.
In such circumstances, the Government must judge how far and how much they can help.
One of the Government's early acts on taking office was to seek a renewal of

the intervention fund which they found had lapsed on 15 March, and a temporary agreement was reached with the EEC Commission. The Government are now making proposals for a fund of £120 million to cover the next two years. In putting these proposals to the Commission, I have had to say that the capacity of 430,000 tons is the highest figure that, in our view, could be retained in 1981.
In addition to the intervention fund, the Government will pursue other measures of support. They are ready to take part in a Community scrap and build scheme provided that it is cost-effective; they are proposing credit for conversions by United Kingdom ship owners, and will support improved credit terms in current OECD discussions; and they will advance public sector orders where practicable.
The Government will give British Shipbuilders a nil commencing capital debt. We are considering further the most appropriate means of financing the corporation. In the meantime, British Shipbuilders will continue to be financed on an interim basis from the national loans fund.
The cost to public funds will be substantial, and British Shipbuilders is aware of the need for strict financial discipline. For the current financial year, British Shipbuilders' cash limit of £250 million and trading loss limit of £100 million, after crediting intervention fund assistance, are not being changed. The corporation is also being set a financial target for 1980–81 of limiting its trading loss, before crediting intervention fund assistance, to £90 million. The corporation must make substantial progress towards providing in the longer term an adequate return on capital employed.
It is unavoidable that contraction will occur mostly in localities where unemployment is already high. For the most part, the shipbuilding industry is located in special development areas, and we are concentrating our regional industrial assisance on these areas. To help alleviate hardship to individual workers and their families, the Government have extended the special redundancy payments scheme to the full period authorised by the Shipbuilding (Redundancy Payments) Act.
The Government want to see a viable and flourishing merchant shipbuilding industry, but the economic facts of the


present situation are there for all to see. Prospects depend on the ability to win orders within the limits of the substantial financial assistance which the Government are making available.
For the future, we attach particular importance to the prospect of British Shipbuilders achieving high levels of efficiency and productivity and of its being able to compete, without subsidy, when the recession is over, in what is still likely to be a very tough world. We are prepared to put public funds, for a two-year period, behind the industry's own efforts to achieve viability. After that, it will depend largely on the extent to which all those who work in the industry have been successful in helping themselves.

Mr. John Silkin: Will the Minister of State acknowledge that his statement spells the virtual destruction of one of the traditional major industries of our country? Is it not plain that the Minister is totally disregarding the enormous social consequences of what he proposes? He says that unemployment in the shipbuilding industry will rise in areas of high unemployment. Does he realise the utter impossibility, as things stand, of the people concerned finding other jobs? If he must destroy the industry, ought not the replacement jobs to be got on with now?
Is the Minister aware that the British Shipbuilders plan to reduce building to 430,000 tons was not in fact approved by the last Government, and does he not realise that a time will come when there is an upturn? Throughout the world the shipbuilding industry is operated on a Government basis. There is not one shipbuilding country which does not rely on large subsidy by the Government. That is why some countries are building at much less than cost. Is it not the British Government's duty to keep this industry alive?
In the light of those factors, does not a period of two years offer far too insufficient a programme? Second, will the Minister take into account the unions' own suggestions, which are, first, that we stop British Shipbuilders from selling its ships abroad, it being possible to bring this into the scrap and build programme; second, that we make it a condition that British ships are built in British yards;

and third, that we see that the limits of subsidy—at the moment under EEC and OECD rules at 30 per cent.—are greatly increased, since that is what all our competitors are doing?

Mr. Butler: The right hon. Gentleman does not help the situation by talking about the virtual destruction of this great industry. There is nothing in my statement that should lead to that conclusion. The Government have been prepared to put a considerable amount of money behind this industry, since, as the right hon. Gentleman points out, so far as we know, all shipbuilding industries throughout the world are at present subsidised.
Moreover, it is quite unreasonable to suggest that we are disregarding the social consequences. Of course, we are aware that most of the areas where shipbuilding is carried on are areas with higher than average unemployment at present. That is partly due to the rundown in the industry which has occurred in the past two years. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will have done his homework and will know that in merchant shipbuilding alone there has already been a reduction in employment of 11,000 in roughly the last two years of his own Administration.
Of course, the consequences are serious. Therefore we have to put what support is available from the Government to help in these social consequences. We also have to see whether there are any other ways in which we can assist in the problem.
The right hon. Gentleman made one or two other suggestions. Principally, he asked that the level of subsidy should be limitless, as I understood him—

Mr. Silkin: Greatly increased.

Mr. Butler: Vastly increased, he said, or words to that effect. I am bound to say that this is very much in line with the sort of attitude which his Government pursued over the last five years. It is not possible to go on spending taxpayers' money without limit without the consequences which flow from that. The whole point of the intervention fund arrangements within the EEC is that at least those countries within the EEC have a sensible approach towards subsidy and that possibly we can reduce the subsidy race which has occurred in the past.
As for British ship owners, again it would be in line with the right hon. Gentleman's own party's approach to compel British ship owners to take the action which he suggests. In fact, as far as I am aware, nothing was done in that respect. It is our belief that, certainly, British ship owners should receive every encouragement to put their orders in British yards, but they, too, must compete in the world, and the most likely way in which British ship owners will place their orders in our yards is if our yards can deliver the ships to order, to specification, and at a competitive price.

Mr. Silkin: The Minister is totally ignoring the real nub of the question. He is talking about what I and my right hon. and hon. Friends believe to be inadequate support over the next 18 months to two years, but the upturn will not come at that time. While the Minister says that there will be a cut-off in 1981, Tory Governments abroad are busy subsidising their shipbuilding industry. The Minister is saying "It is true that this is an important and historic industry, but it does not matter what happens to it".

Mr. Butler: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware, I am sure, of the statement put out by his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) earlier this year in April. One of the matters in that statement was a request for an intervention fund spanning one year only. The right hon. Gentleman will have noticed from my statement that we are going for an intervention fund over two years. To me that seems to be evidence that we are taking a much longer term view than did the right hon. Gentleman's Administration.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: What has my hon. Friend to tell the House about the shin repairing side of British Shipbuilders' business? Through sheer management incompetence, including incompetence on the part of Admiral Griffin and Mr. Casey, taxpayers' money has been used to buy ship repairing operations such as that at Falmouth, following which money and jobs have been lost because management has not been capable of running those operations competently. Will my hon. Friend ensure that these assets are sold off to the private sector? That will provide finance for the

industry and employment in the areas concerned.

Mr. Heller: That is a hybrid question.

Mr. Butler: I am aware of the very real concern of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) about the situation at Falmouth. In general, the ship repairing companies will benefit from an extension of the home credit scheme to conversions. As for the policy of British Shipbuilders towards disposal, it is generally aware of the Government's view on this matter and it will take decisions in the light of commercial considerations.

Mr. Conlan: Is the Minister aware that, in spite of the limited support that he has announced to the House this afternoon, the Government's policy must inevitably lead to large-scale redundancies in the shipbuilding industry? Is he further aware that, because 70 per cent. of the work involved in building a ship is done in factories outside the shipyards, the Government's policy will also lead to large-scale redundancies in subcontracting firms? What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that workers in the factories outside the shipyards are treated fairly and equitably?

Mr. Butler: I am aware that redundancies in shipbuilding have consequences 
in the supplying industries. As I said in my statement, I believe that the inevitability of further contraction is accepted, however reluctantly, by all those who understand the problem—including those who work in the industry and management. We must try to reduce the degree of contraction by winning orders, and that, as I have said, is up to those who work in the industry, including management.

Mr. Sproat: Will my hon. Friend accept that the overwhelming majority will support him in facing the grim realities of the shipbuilding industry, both in this country and in the rest of the world, which the last Labour Government so disastrously failed to do? As for the situation in Scotland, will my hon. Friend lose no opportunity of pointing out that while the worse of the redundancies are likely, tragically, to be in the west of Scotland, that is exactly where the greatest amount of help under the new regional policies will be concentrated?

Mr. Butler: I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. I hope that it is a hallmark of this Government that we at least approach matters with realism.

Mr. Booth: The Minister will be aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced last week that development area status would be withdrawn from my constituency which is one of the most important shipbuilding areas in this country. The hon. Gentleman made no reference to the position of those yards involved with naval contracts. Does he accept that with the grossly inadequate intervention fund that he has announced there will inevitably be a mad scramble for any naval orders that are forthcoming? Is it not irresponsible to put to the House at this stage the concern for shipbuilding areas in the form that he has this afternoon, when development area status is being withdrawn from a shipbuilding area?

Mr. Butler: We must look specially at the area for which the right hon. Gentleman is responsible if it becomes significantly affected by further contraction of the industry, but it is true to say that most of the areas in which the redundancies will occur are already special development areas and, therefore, aid will be concentrated on them.

Mr. Trotter: Does my hon. Friend accept that it is fairly realistic to continue public support for this industry in view of the world situation? Does he also accept, however, that the future of the industry depends upon those working in it? The country requires an efficient and prosperous shipbuilding industry. First, can the Minister confirm that the implementation of the rationalisation will be left to British Shipbuilders and its commercial judgment? Secondly, can he confirm that he has basically accepted the recommendations of British Shipbuilders as the best possible solution in appallingly difficult circumstances, unlike his predecessor, who sat on the corporate plan for six months?

Mr. Butler: It is true that we have come to grips with the situation and discovered a matter that had been left in abeyance during the period of the run-up to the election. As I pointed out in my statement, it certainly is true that, for instance, the intervention fund ran out on

15 March and one of the first things that I had to do was to achieve an interim arrangement.
To answer the main point of my hon. Friend's question, it is up to the management of British Shipbuilders to run the business, to achieve those orders that it can and, where rundown is necessary, to make its own arrangements.

Mr. McCusker: Where, and in what form, will the statement of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland about the future of Harland and Wolff be made? Does the Minister agree that a written announcement would be most inappropriate?

Mr. Butler: The matter of Northern Ireland and Harland and Wolff will be answered by means of a written answer today.

Mr. Stephen Ross: Does the Minister agree that British Shipbuilders—both management and men—have made very aggressive attempts to obtain new orders in recent months? Those attempts have been thwarted, to a large extent, by the strong value of the pound, which is making life far more difficult. Will the Minister have discussions with the management of British Rail Sealink, which has a number of designs on the drawing board for new cross-Channel and cross-Solent ferries? Could those orders not be brought forward and placed in British yards?

Mr. Butler: I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that management has been making sterling efforts to find new orders. Naturally, along with the rest of British industry, shipbuilding faces a difficulty where the exchange rate moves against it. I made clear in my statement that we will look at ways of bringing forward public sector orders in terms of British Rail.

Mr. Emery: In order to assess the amount of support the Government are giving to the industry, can the Minister estimate approximately how much public money will be spent on the shipbuilding industry over the next two years?

Mr. Butler: As my hon. Friend will realise, that is an extremely difficult calculation to make. It obviously depends on the degree of rundown in the industry.

Mr. Foot: The statement that the hon. Gentleman made a minute or two ago, that the announcement about Harland and Wolff and the effect of his policy in Northern Ireland would be made only by a written answer today, is entirely unsatisfactory. We therefore must hope that a statement will be made to the House; it could be made now, because the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is in the Chamber. I should have thought that it would be perfectly possible for the Secretary of State to make a statement today, which would mean that representatives from Northern Ireland would be able to cross-question him about it. Indeed, the Leader of the House is aware that we found the arrangements for business today entirely unsatisfactory, in any case. But if the statement is to be by way of a written answer it will make it even more unsatisfactory and difficult to proceed with the business. Therefore, I hope that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will make that statement from the Dispatch Box this afternoon.

Mr. Butler: I understand that the answer to this question is available now and that this matter can be raised during the debate on the Northern Ireland Appropriation order this evening.

Mr. Foot: May I press the hon. Gentleman further?

Hon. Members: Order. Order.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I believe that the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) is about to ask a question.

Mr. Foot: Will the Minister of State reconsider what he has just said? Since the written answer is available now, and since the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is present on the Treasury Bench, surely the statement can be made to the House now, so that hon. Members representing Northern Ireland seats can put questions to him. If they cannot do so now, hon. Members may have to wait until very late tonight before any question can be raised. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore reconsider his statement and ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who certainly appears to be willing to do so, to make his statement?

Mr. Butler: It was clear in my statement that I was referring only to British shipyards and that the Northern Ireland aspect would be dealt with separately.

Mr. McNamara: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have been to the Vote Office and found that no statement is available on Harland and Wolff. That makes nonsense of what the Minister of State said.

Mr. Speaker: That may well be so, but we are now dealing with the statement by the Minister of State, and supplementary questions must be directed towards that.

Mr. Grylls: Does my hon. Friend accept that the statement by the Opposition Front Bench spokesman that the Government are proposing to destroy the shipbuilding industry shows his complete ignorance of the industry, particularly since the Government have proposed a cutback of one-third? That can hardly be described as destruction. Will my hon. Friend therefore disregard the right hon. Gentleman's comments?
Will my hon. Friend look at some of the extravagances of British Shipbuilders in respect of its headquarters? If the corporation is to apply a good financial discipline in the yards, ought it not to apply such a discipline to its own organisation? Is my hon. Friend aware that it has four offices—two in the West End of London, one in Newcastle and one in Hong Kong? In addition, it has innumerable Jaguars whizzing around the country. Would it not be better if it tried to save money and therefore set a good example to the yards in the difficult two years that lie ahead?

Mr. Butler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the first part of his question. On the second part, I have no doubt that the management of BS will already have taken note of the letters that my hon. Friend has sent to it, which he has also sent to me, and that if there are extravagances it will do its best to cut them out.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Have the Government not totally failed, in terms of high technology in the North Sea, to make sure that orders for large support ships are placed at home? An example is the


Shell emergency maintenance and service vessel, about which I spoke to the Secretary of State for Industry some time ago. Is it not the case that the Government are failing to build these ships at home? They represent a very large market. The Government should waken up to the fact that British industry should supply ships to the North Sea oil industry. They should not let the orders go to the Japanese, the Finns, the Norwegians and all those with whom we have no contractual agreements.
Are the Government not also failing to appreciate the way in which subsidies on ships are operated within the Common Market? In spite of the conversation by the Minister with Commissioner Vouel, the Government are not robust enough in standing up to the Community and insisting on British participation.
Finally, is it not the case—

Hon. Members: Too long.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The length of the right hon. Member's question will have reduced the number of hon. Members who are called. He has asked two questions already.

Mr. Butler: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that our attitude towards the Commission is robust but courteous. If he has evidence of unfair subsidy within the Common Market, perhaps he will draw my attention to it. We have discussed his first point before now. The ESV required a degree of subsidy which was not justified in the circumstances. It is the only vessel for which an application for intervention fund money has been refused.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Is the Minister of State aware that we feel that the Secretary of State has failed to defend Scottish interests on shipbuilding in the Cabinet? The real problem facing the shipbuilding industry in Scotland is that certain areas are running out of orders. Will the Minister therefore consider a programme of speculative building for those yards in order to keep the design teams together, or will he produce public service or public sector orders in order to maintain employment in areas that are desperately short of jobs?

Mr. Butler: I am not privy to what goes on in the Cabinet, but I can assure the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) that the Secretary of State for Scotland has made very clear to me the position in that country. The answer in respect of speculative building is "No".

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will my hon. Friend confirm that if we were to implement the fatuous suggestions of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) every British shipping line would have to chose between going into liquidation and changing its domicile? Will my hon. Friend look with extreme scepticism on any proposals for a scrap and build programme, bearing in mind that it is virtually impossible to devise such a programme without allowing a substantial part of the proceeds to go to yards in Korea and elsewhere?

Mr. Butler: I referred in my statement to the need for scrap and build to be cost-effective. I have already made clear in informal talks with Commissioner Davignon that if the scheme were to go ahead we would wish the principle of he who benefits pays to be followed.

Mr. McMahon: What positive steps is the Minister taking to secure work for the Govan shipyard, which will be running out of work within the next couple of months? In that yard men and management have got together in order to solve their domestic problems. What steps is the Minister taking in order to provide us with work?

Mr. Butler: I think that the House has been pleased with the demonstration by the Govan workers of continuing to work over the holidays in order to get out the shipbuilding orders. However, future shipbuilding orders are the responsibility not of me but of British Shipbuilders.

Mr. Hill: Is my hon. Friend aware that the General Council of British Shipping is deeply concerned about fleet replacement over the next 10 years? It is also greatly concerned about the family firms—close company firms—that are members of the Council but are not allowed within the distribution of profits to put sufficient investment aside to replace their fleets. Will my hon. Friend have a word


with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to see whether some encouragement could be given to British shipping concerns to use their investments to buy at British yards?

Mr. Butler: I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor will have taken note of my hon. Friend's suggestion. He is correct in saying that British shipowners are facing a severe time. They have had to sell ships in order to raise cash.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call five more Labour Members. That will have given a good run to the Opposition.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Is the Minister aware that the decision not to return the naval shipyards to private enterprise and thereby avoid another major upheaval will be widely welcomed by the workers in that industry? Will he give a firm undertaking that the placing of future naval shipbuilding orders will be on the basis of commercial criteria and not as an adjunct to regional policy?

Mr. Butler: I understand that the Ministry of Defence places orders with those yards which are best suited to do the job. I did not receive the impression that the hon. Gentleman did when I visited the shipyards in his area recently.

Mr. Dixon: Does the Minister realise that to those working in the shipbuilding industry their jobs have become a way of life? Does he appreciate that his statement today will kill many communities whose economic and social base relies on shipbuilding? That was the case when Shipbuilding Security Limited murdered my home town in the 1930s. Does the Minister appreciate that in future he will be referred to as "the nautical pill" because of the number of shipbuilding births that he has stopped today as a result of his statement?

Mr. Butler: I am aware, from my recent visits, of the special feeling that exists in shipyards and the pride with which the work is done. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman improves matters by using emotive language. We are faced with a serious problem and the Government are trying to solve that problem.

Mr. Mike Thomas: Is the Minister aware that the equanimity with which he

proposes to double the male unemployment rate on the riverside areas of the Tyne will be noted in Newcastle and the surrounding areas? It will confirm the impression of my constituents that they are to pay with their jobs for other people's tax cuts. Is the Minister aware that were it not for the fact that naval orders have continued to come through from the last Government by now we would have almost gone over the precipice? Will he assure the House that work will be brought forward? Work for the yards is critical. Govan runs out of work in two months' time and the yards in my constituency will run out soon after that. I hope that he will look into the matter.

Mr. Butler: I cannot add anything to my statement about the bringing forward of public sector orders. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government's attitude towards defence expenditure is likely to result in more naval work for the yards than the attitude of the previous Administration.

Mr. Field: Does the Minister accept that we have had yet another statement from an Industry Minister which brings despair to tens of thousands of families around the country? Will he spell out not how many jobs he hopes to have in merchant shipbuilding by the end of two years but how many jobs he intends to axe over the next two years? We are now seeing the force of the statement that one man's tax cut is another man's job loss.

Mr. Butler: On the hon. Gentleman's last point I hope that he will learn that that is not the case. Every pound that is taken from profitable industry to provide jobs in obsolete industries will affect the job prospects of those in the profitable industries. That is the lesson that must be learnt.

Mr. Robert Hughes: In his statement the right hon. Gentleman referred to the maximum annual production of the industry as being 430,000 tons. Will he tell the House what the minimum figures are? How can he justify acting now and thinking later about a scrap and build policy? Unless jobs and orders are provided and assistance is given to build the ships he will be scrapping the yards and other countries will be building the ships.

Mr. Butler: I made clear the Government's attitude towards the preferred strategy figures of British Shipbuilders. We believe that it would have difficulty in sustaining that capacity figure in the present market conditions. On the other hand, we have put forward substantial sums of money to help it to reach that capacity. As far as the scrap and build programme is concerned, I first saw Commissioner Davignon some weeks ago and I told him that our attitude was likely to be one of support but that if it was to have any effect it should be brought in as soon as possible.

Dr. John Cunningham: Does not the Minister's statement mean that there will be massive redundancies on the Upper Clyde, the Tyne and the Wear and probably on the Tees, both in direct jobs in shipbuilding and many times more in indirect shipbuilding jobs? It also means that British Shipbuilders will miss an opportunity to develop new maritime technology. Because of the financial restrictions that have been imposed, if and when an upturn in the industry comes British Shipbuilders will be too small and too inadequately financed to take advantage of it.

Mr. Butler: The purpose of the exercise is to end up with a merchant shipbuilding industry which is able to survive in the future without subsidy. Unless that is achieved there will be no future for the industry. I believe that productivity increases will be forthcoming and that the industry will be self-sufficient. However, it is up to the management and the workers in the industry to achieve that position.

Mr. Foot: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will have heard the exchanges that took place a few minutes ago when it was indicated by the Minister that a statement in reply to a written question was available to the House. My hon. Friends and I asked that the statement should be made available now to the House. In one of his replies the Minister said that he had not been privy to the discussions in the Cabinet on the matters. We appreciate that and it was one of the reasons why we objected to his making the statement in the first place.
In the light of these reasonable representations we ask you, Mr. Speaker,

whether you have received a representation from the Government that they should make an oral statement to the House about Northern Ireland and the future of Harland and Wolff. That has been an explosive political issue for many years. For a statement on such a matter to be included in a written answer is not the right way to deal with the matter, especially when the question has been raised in exchanges in the House. I urge the Government to make the statement orally to the House, especially in view of the fact that the Opposition made strong representations last Thursday about the way in which the business was being organised. I hope that the Government will take that into account and do their best to ease matters. The Opposition suggested that there should be proper time to discuss Northern Ireland affairs today and the Government rejected that proposition—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have allowed great latitude to the right hon. Gentleman. He should pursue his point with the Government rather than with me. Only a point of order can be raised at this stage.
The right hon. Gentleman asks me whether I have received a request from the Government for an oral statement to be made. I have not received such a request, and I cannot change the business of the day.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I may remind the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) that when a statement on shipbuilding was made by the relevant Minister of his Government on 4 April it was by means of a written answer.
I have ascertained that the present answer, to written question No. 170, was put on the Board at 4 p.m. Copies have been sent to all Northern Ireland hon. Members, or have been put on the Board for them, and they have also been sent to the spokesmen of the Labour and Liberal Parties. Further copies are either available now in the Vote Office, or will be available in a few moments.

Several hon. Members: Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no point in our getting out of order on this question. It is quite clear that all that we can do is to follow the order of business as it is laid down. That is all that I am able to do. All the points of order in the world cannot change the fact that I am instructed by the House to follow what is on our Order Paper for today.

Mr. Foot: Mr. Foot rose—

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the right hon. Gentleman, may I say that I shall not take a series of points of order on this question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I shall not do so because the House has itself given me instructions on what I am to do.

Mr. Foot: May I put to you afresh the point of order that I put to you before, Mr. Speaker? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO".] I am putting the point of order to you, Mr. Speaker, not to others who presume to order the affairs of the House.
I call special attention to the statement that has now been made to the House by the Leader of the House. It was not made originally. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a written statement now in the possession of some hon. Members. I once again ask whether, in the light of that fresh disclosure that this now been made to the House, there have been any further attempts by the Gov-

ernment to ease the position of the House in this matter.
We shall shortly come to a motion on the business of the House. Presumably, on that motion it will be in order to debate whether we should have had a proper statement on this matter. Therefore, I ask once again, in the interests of the Government, whether they will not consider afresh making representations to you, Mr. Speaker, to have the chance to make to the House the statement which they say is available to some hon. Members but not to all. If they do not, the House must take the opportunity to debate the matter on the next motion.

Mr. Speaker: I have received no request on the subject of the right hon. Gentleman's point of order, and therefore I am obliged by the House to move to "Presentation of Bill".

BILL PRESENTED

BEES

Mr. Peter Walker, supported by Mr. Secretary Younger, Mr. Secretary Edwards, Mr. Secretary Atkins, Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith and Mr. Jerry Wiggin presented a Bill to make new provision for the control of pests and diseases affecting bees: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 46.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall not pursue by point of order the business that we have already dealt with. We are moving now to the motion on business of the House.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: On a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: I am not pursuing any more points of order on the question with which we were dealing before the Bill was presented. I shall call the hon. Gentleman's manuscript amendment to the business motion in a moment.

Mr. McNamara: I am grateful for that information, Mr. Speaker. But I had a point of order which I hoped would be of help to hon. Members, and which does not arise out of the matter of Harland and Wolff, even though I feel seriously about that. It was about matters that I tried to take up with you this morning, by private notice question. You rightly—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is out of order in referring to the fact that he submitted a private notice question to me. That is not done, and everyone knows it.

Mr. McNamara: In that case, Mr. Speaker, I apologise to you and the House. But could you help the House? If an hon. Member has a point that he wishes to put by way of a private notice question and you, in the exercise of your discretion, rule it out of order or do not accept it, notice of your decision will not be given until after 12 o'clock. The hon. Member could have pursued another course of action—that of seeking to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9. The difference is that if one asks a question one hopes for an answer, whereas if one seeks to move the Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 one merely makes a case, and the decision whether to put the matter to the House is again at your discretion, Mr. Speaker.
My point is that if one seeks to proceed under Standing Order No. 9 one will not know until one is in the House whether the application will be accepted. That application must also be in before 12 o'clock, just as the private notice ques-

tion must be. As one does not know until after that hour whether the private notice question has been accepted, one is on a sort of Morton's Fork. If any other hon. Member is suddenly faced with the problem of 1,000 unemployed and wishes to take either of those courses, which will be the best one for him to pursue to make sure that he can air the matter on the Floor of the House and obtain an answer from the Government?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter. It is up to every hon. Member to decide for himself whether he chooses to submit a private notice question, hoping that it will be called, or whether he will seek leave under Standing Order No. 9 to move the Adjournment of the House. The hon. Gentleman is quite right. If he submits a private notice question and it is not accepted, it is then too late for him to submit his application under Standing Order No. 9, because it must be done before 12 o'clock, if the subject matter is in his knowledge then. But he must make up his mind which course he thinks is best for himself.
We come to the business motion.

Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Is it on business that we have already dealt with?

Mr. Cryer: Not directly, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I am not going back to the question of the written answer.

Mr. Cryer: It is not on the question of the written answer, Mr. Speaker. It is on the matter of statements. I have raised this subject with you before. How can the House alter a situation which has been complained about for at least the past five years, with nothing having been done about it, whereby statements are made to the House by Ministers without the necessary accompanying documentation?
I refer to the fact that members of the press have copies of the statement, and certain other people are apparently picked out to receive copies. Why cannot copies of a ministerial statement be available at the Vote Office at 3.30 p.m.? If the suggestion that I made the week before last had been followed, the whole mess that the House got into over the


lack of information from the Department of Industry last week would have been avoided, and the mess that the House got into today would have been avoided, because it would have become a convention of the House that all the relevant written material would be available in the Vote Office.
I understand that written statements are made available to members of the press in order that they may make a judgment upon them and prepare a short synopsis. Surely, Members of Parliament, who have important interests to represent, should have at least equal status with the press. What can we do to improve the position?

Mr. Speaker: This is a matter for the usual channels to resolve. It is not a matter for me. The hon. Gentleman should pursue it with the usual channels.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On another point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that the business motion that you are trying to call is debatable. If so, I wish to give notice that I should like to debate it.

Mr. Speaker: I am very much obliged. I do not know for whom I am speaking when I say that.

Mr. A. W. Stallard: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance on a constitutional point? In reply to questions and points of order about the shipyard business a few minutes ago, the Minister of State, Department of Industry, said that he had no authority to deal with anything except British yards. Am I to infer, therefore, that the Government have now relinquished sovereignty over Harland and Wolff? Do I further infer, Mr. Speaker, that by your condoning that statement we have accepted as a nation that we no longer have sovereignty over Harland and Wolff and that it is not British?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's first point is not for me. As for his second, he is not right to draw any conclusion whatsoever.

Motion made and Question proposed,
That, at this day's sitting, Standing Order No. 3 shall apply to the motion relating to the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order with the substitution of half-past Two o'clock or four and a half hours after it has been

entered upon, whichever is the later, for the provisions in paragraph (b) of the Standing Order.—[Mr. MacGregor.]

Mr. Speaker: I have selected a manuscript amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), to leave out from "sitting" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof
the motion relating to the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order may be proceeded with until any hour.

4.50 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: I start by expressing my gratitude to you Mr. Speaker, for using your discretion to accept my amendment. Its effect would be to ensure that rather than finishing at 2.30 a.m., or 3 a.m., if there is a Division at 10 p.m. on the Competition Bill, we would go forward with our debate for the rest of the day.
I shall move the amendment for a variety of reasons. It would have been easy merely to oppose the Government's motion and vote on it. Had they won, the debate would have been limited to one and a half hours, which would have been intolerable. That would, however, be only a little more intolerable than the position that we are in at present.
When the business of the House was announced on the Thursday before last we were told that we were to have Northern Ireland orders debated today. I admit that we were not promised that we would have Northern Ireland orders exclusively. I remember the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) congratulating the Government when we discussed the emergency provisions legislation for ensuring that, at last, the House had been given a proper time to discuss Northern Ireland business. We were given two whole days to discuss the affairs of the Six Counties.
It does not matter what one regards as being the future constitutional position of the Six Counties, the proper constitutional arrangement for the island of Ireland or the relationship of mainland Great Britain with the Six Counties or the Republic of Ireland. One's attitude on those matters does not affect the importance of the fact that we should properly discuss the affairs of the Six Counties of Northern Ireland which are part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
I criticised my own Government for being too keen on occasions to put down orders affecting Northern Ireland for debate on Friday afternoons, when hon. Members often have constituency engagements, or last thing on a Thursday night when hon. Members are rushing off to catch sleepers. For a variety of reasons it seemed never to be convenient to have Northern Ireland business on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
I was particularly pleased, therefore, with the decision of the Administration to take the orders before the House on a Monday afternoon. Whether we like it or not, the involvement of the British Army in the Six Counties, the enormous cost of adminstering the Six Counties, the special arrangements made in terms of organising the administration of the Province, the fact that it is the only part of the United Kingdom with a land frontier with a foreign Power, the fact that that frontier creates problems of trade and security and the fact that in the whole of Ireland the Six Counties are the only place where we have urban and rural guerrillas, of whatever type, are all sound and important reasons why we should have longer to debate the orders.
It was with considerable regret that many of my hon. Friends and I heard that arrangements had been made for the business to be taken after the debate on the Competition Bill. It seemed to me that, in those circumstances, we should ensure that if we could not have a proper debate during the day we should at least have an open-ended debate during the night so that any hon. Member who could reasonably expect to be in his place to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair would be able to contribute to a debate on one of the most important problems within our islands. Hon. Members with information and knowledge that they wish to impart to the House should have the opportunity to do so, untrammelled by the guillotine of time.
We should be able to voice our opinions on the use of the Appropriation order, the Votes and grants in aid contained in it. We should also be able to follow what has become the custom on such occasions and have a general look at the economy of Northern Ireland and

discuss the many problems associated with it.
I think that all hon. Members would agree that the security position makes economic problems of Northern Ireland, bad though they are and have been, infinitely worse and harder to resolve by any well-meaning Government, whether Tory or Labour. The House should debate the matter fully and properly.
We are to have four and a half hours to debate the Appropriation order. If we allow nearly one hour for the Front Bench speakers, that leaves each of the 12 Northern Ireland Members 18·33 minutes to discuss the problems of the Province. Even if we distributed the time of the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maguire) among his 11 colleagues in the Six Counties, they would still have only 20 minutes each for their speeches.
But it is not just a Northern Ireland problem; it is a British problem. It is a matter about which hon. Members have a right to voice opinions. It concerns the use of British troops, the spending of British wealth, and our whole constitutional future. We have a right, indeed, a duty, to speak for the English, Scottish and Welsh constituencies about the problems of Northern Ireland and how they affect us and our constituencies.
When one considers how much time is available for the debate, it is clear that it will be impossible for us to have a worthwhile and meaningful discussion of the problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), even given his bird's eye view of Irish history and the economic problems of West Belfast—let alone those of the rest of Belfast—would find it difficult to get in all his comments within half an hour.
The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley)—who, unfortunately, is not here at the moment; presumably he is organising a committee to welcome the Pope to Northern Ireland—

Mr. Gerard Fitt: He is visiting Rome.

Mr. McNamara: —would find it difficult to speak within 15 minutes. I would not criticise my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West or the hon. Member for Antrim, North or any other Member from Northern Ireland for taking longer


than half an hour to discuss the problems of their troubled Province, because the time available to them is severely limited and it adds insult to injury if the debate is not only taken at night but under a guillotine as well.
Among the matters that we should have to talk about in the four and a half hours is the question of a number of grants in aid—for example, assistance to the gas industry in Northern Ireland. I understand that there is a written answer today which will only be to the knowledge of the Members for Northern Ireland lucky enough to be here and go to the board. I understand that the reply talks about the complete withdrawal of support to the Northern Ireland gas industry. That matter alone would take a great deal of time to discuss.
My right hon. Friends on the Front Bench will remember the discussions and the great pressures that they were under. Perhaps the Labour Government would still have been in power if they had been willing to build an undersea pipeline to take North Sea gas to the Six Counties. Now, however, Northern Ireland is not even to get that. Aid to the gas industry there is to be withdrawn.
As part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland has a great problem with the supply of gas for both domestic and industrial use. The gas industry was supported—as a Socialist, I believe it to have been proper support—in order to help both industrial and domestic users in Northern Ireland. Now the answer about the withdrawal of aid has ben slipped in by sleight of hand to the privileged Members for Northern Ireland. It has not been given to the remainder of hon. Members. Thus, it appears that we have two classes of Members, one from Northern Ireland and one from the rest of the United Kingdom, and that certain hon. Members will be privy to information for debate while others will not, or at least will not be able to get it without going to a great deal of trouble and time-consuming effort to find out where it is, where it is coming from and what are its possible implications.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: Is my hon. Friend aware that the practice of which he is complaining—with complete justification—illustrates a general practice which

appears to be growing under this Government? It is that of making certain Members, selected by the Government, privy to information in advance of Members of the House as a whole. The example that my hon. Friend is giving follows hard on the heels of last week's announcement on regional policy. Is it not wholly unacceptable for members of the Government to pick and choose which Members they will pass information to prior to or concurrently with the making of a statement?

Mr. McNamara: I am grateful for that observation. It seems that there are two classes of Member. Only today the Leader of the House spoke about those to whom answers had been sent. I am informed by the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) that the information which he was told had been sent to him was being delivered to the board as he went out to get it. It is a strange way to govern a democracy, yet it is a practice from which Back Benchers suffer greatly. I may add that the situation reflects not only on the present Government; we suffered the same sort of problems under the Labour Government. But that does not make the matter easier.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: The trouble is that the present Government got the same civil servants and the same advisers, and of course they carry out their advice.

Mr. McNamara: If one believes that the present Government are weak and spineless, because of their policies, that shows how robust and strong the Labour Government were, because they did not carry out the disastrous policies on regional assistance and job maintenance that the present Government are carrying out.
Earlier today we had the statement on shipbuilding. In reply to the hon. Member for Armagh the Minister making the statement—obviously only an office boy because he was not privy to the Cabinet decision and did not know how it had been reached—said that the Secretary of State would make a statement later on Harland and Wolff. After a flurry on the Government Bench that was amended to say that there would be a written answer to a question. Unless


we had pursued the point we would have been at a complete loss about the situation. But we are still at a loss, because the Government refused the suggestion by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) that it might be a good idea and good policy for the Government to make a statement about Harland and Wolff in the House. As a result, if we have only the time allocated by the Government for the Northern Ireland debate today, a great deal of it will be taken up pursuing the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland about the future of Harland and Wolff.
The future of the shipyard is not just a question of jobs or of the internal economic balance within Northern Ireland. It is the major employer in the East Belfast area. That is an area from which I would not normally expect a great deal of political support, but I have great sympathy for the people there if they are to be faced with a sudden job loss and a sudden threat to their standard of living. Like the rest of Belfast, the area suffers from partition, and from the presence of armed troops on the streets, with a police force grappling for the respect of the community. Suddenly to have foisted upon it a great deal of unemployment and short-time working, with all the uncertainty about apprenticeships and employment prospects for young people, and for us to have only four and half hours in which to debate even that one item, is to create a dangerous situation.
For a start, there will be very few scribes in the Press Gallery to record the concern that hon. Members feel about the matter. Little time and opportunity will be given to my hon. Friends to express their feelings about the relationship of Harland and Wolff to British Shipbuilders. There were those of us who argued during the period of office of the previous Government, against the wishes of many Northern Ireland Members, that Harland and Wolff should not be part of British Shipbuilders. We felt that its future would be better protected if it were independent, under the Department of Commerce, rather than part of the overall British shipbuilding industry. We felt at that time that Harland and Wolff, on the periphery of these islands, might suffer more drastically and more rapidly

than mainland yards if it did not receive special attention. That was not an argument that found a great deal of favour with all hon. Members from Northern Ireland, but it was a matter of considerable importance to hon. Members on the Labour side of the House.
Against the background of the announcement on British Shipbuilders today, and against the background of the written answer about Harland and Wolff, which some hon. Members have not yet had an opportunity properly to read, we should have had more time to discuss this issue. The opportunity is to be denied us. On those two issues, which have been the subject of written answers today and to which I am not yet privy, we have only four and a half hours for discussions. I do not believe, nor, I believe, do many of my hon. Friends, that that will be long enough. It is for that reason that the manuscript amendment in my name was put forward.
Other matters that can be raised, purely and simply, by the nature of this order can take up a great deal of the time that will be spent after 10 p.m. They are matters of controversy that would merit detailed discussion if we were to go into all the principles. I take one at random. Article 2 of the order that we are to discuss says:
The Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 shall apply to Article 1 and the following provisions of this Order as it applies to a Measure of the Northern Ireland Assembly".
Many hon. Members would question the whereabouts of the Northern Ireland Assembly, this strange constitutional creature which disappeared at the time of the Northern Ireland workers' stoppage, but which still seems, in its ordinances and in its declarations, to govern us from the limbo in which it is placed. This raises the whole propriety of the constitutional methods used in discussing Northern Ireland finance. One can envisage a situation later this evening when the House will barely get beyond the two opening speeches from the two Front Benches discussing whether the methods that we are using to debate these matters are proper methods to be used at all. It is perhaps not the happiest way to discuss Northern Ireland and its financial problems against a background of a democratic Assembly that has not met for five years.
A large part of the time could perhaps be devoted to examining better and more expedient methods of discussing how these matters should be debated. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West hopes perhaps that one day these matters will be discussed in Dail Eireann. That is a sympathy which I understand and for which I have a large measure of support, provided that it is done by democratic methods.
Other hon. Members would perhaps argue that we should not be discussing this order in this way at all and that the Six Counties should be fully and properly integrated into the United Kingdom. That is not an argument in which I find substance, although other hon. Members might disagree with my view. It is not a course of action that I would recommend to my constituents. But the fact is that we are discussing this order as if it were a measure of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I do not believe that it would be right to allow that matter to go by default in the four and a half hours at our disposal later this evening.
Article 3 contains an important item which in itself would merit that amount of time for debate. It says:
The Department of Finance may issue out of the Consolidated Fund and apply towards making good the supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ended on 31st March 1978, the sum of ten pounds.
I am sure that Her Majesty can do a lot with £10. I doubt whether it would reach the inflation limits of the previous Government or cover the galloping inflation of the present time.
That, however, is an aside, because we are examining the appropriateness of the time that is being given and the reason why we should be given longer. It is a measure of the contempt in which the Government hold the House that they should have sought to introduce this legislation in a mad rush in one week. It is significant that they are introducing these matters in a shamefaced manner. I have already illustrated to the House how the Government are dealing in a shamefaced manner with some of the problems of Northern Ireland, including the disappearance of the subsidy to the gas industry and the treatment of Harland and Wolff.
But there are other matters that should be discussed. There is the question of

the strange behaviour of the baking industry and the arrangements made in regard to Peter Pan bakeries. The baking industry was crying out, on one hand, to the Government for support to keep open the bakery and, on the other, saying that it should be closed because there was too much competition. The industry was telling one story to its workers and another to the Government. It was saying, on the one hand, that it wanted plenty of compensation—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawstaw): Order. I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Member unduly, but he is making a case for a matter other than that to which he is supposed to be speaking. Will he please return to the subject of the time allocated to this debate?

Mr. McNamara: Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was attempting to indicate to the House some of the topics which appear in the Vote, a number of which require explanation and which I do not believe can be covered properly in the four and a half hours which the Government propose to give the House to debate them. I have been trying to explain certain of the matters contained in the Vote of the Department of Commerce. They include Peter Pan bakeries, Harland and Wolff and the gas industry. I also wanted to explain to the House the problem of Antrim Crystal.
In arguing about the economic policies contained in this Vote for Northern Ireland we are looking not just at budget accounts and trying to balance one set of figures against another but at a social and economic policy against the background of the difficulties in Northern Ireland. To do that in four and a half hours is not fair to right hon. and hon. Members. That is the line of argument that I have been attempting to pursue.
I have also been trying to suggest that what we have illustrated by this policy is a contempt of the House by the Government. They are seeking to bring forward this matter after 10 o'clock, and later this week we are to discuss two orders put forward by the Department of Employment concerning notices of redundancy and various other matters, again after 10 o'clock at night. These, too, are indicative of the Government's attitude.
When I see the Order Papers for Tuesday and Wednesday, if I discover that the Government have tabled motions about the orders I shall be very keen to see whether we shall be limited again to an hour and a half, or whether it will be possible to amend the relevant motions.
There are other matters which we need to discuss. I have already cited the example of gas and how the subsidy is to end. Last year the sum of £9,628,000 was granted for expenditure by the Department of Commerce on Northern Ireland's electricity supply undertaking. That gave rise to the need to question the relationship of the economic policy to the energy policy. If we debate this economic policy, we cannot do so against the background of energy costs because energy in Northern Ireland is very expensive and needs to be supported financially.
Then we have the strange figure of £18 million being spent on the provision of land and buildings, the promotion of tourism and development policy. That is one of the largest sums to be found in the Vote until we come to specific aid to industry of nearly £71 million. That again needs to be discussed, and that cannot be done in four and a half hours.
Another specific matter which we must look at hits at the Government's policy on security and the maintenance of law and order. Right hon. and hon. Members will recall that that weighed very heavily during the recent election campaign.
Class VII deals with expenditure by the Department of the Environment on fire and other protective services. Under the heading "Sums Granted", we see the figure of £4,653,000. Under "Appropriations in Aid", we see a dash—nil. This seems to be a contradiction of the Government's policy. Despite this morning's news and past campaigns involving the burning of buildings and the destruction of property and its increase over the past year there is to be no increase in the sums granted, and we are entitled to ask why the Government are so satisfied with the fire and other protective services that they feel that further money should not be spent on this occasion.
Then we come to Class VIII. That raises other very important problems of a constitutional and democratic nature. Right hon. and hon. Members will be

aware that in Northern Ireland there is a system of area education and library boards which are nominated bodies. Looking at the amount of money spent on them, we find that there is more than £200 million one way or the other being spent by appointed boards which are answerable to no one other than themselves or perhaps some remote official in a Government Department. That gives rise to the question of local government and its organisation within the Six Counties of Northern Ireland and whether we should accede to the clamour for the extinction of local government. I believe that we should not because of the abuses which existed before the Macrory reforms and which many of us would not like to see return to these unhappy Six Counties.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member is touching on all the subjects in the order. I appreciate that. But he is going on to argue as he would do if we were debating the order now. Will he please confine himself to the time proposed to be allocated to the debate?

Mr. McNamara: If we are to discuss that £200 million, we shall need far longer than the four and a half hours allocated to the debate. I do not believe that I have been arguing the case before. I have merely tried to illustrate the two sides of the argument about it and about many of the other factors underlying this seemingly innocuous document of eight pages and these five or six columns of figures. Again, in my view, it is an insult to the House that a major issue of £200 million should have to be debated in four and a half hours. I do not believe that that is good enough.
I move on to Class IX. I shall not seek to illustrate the argument as I did on Class VIII.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: My hon. Friend is arguing that the time for the debate should be extended. Unless he gives me reasons why he feels that it should be extended, I shall not know whether to vote for the motion or for his amendment. I must implore my hon. Friend to give some reasons why I should support the amendment rather than the Government's motion. Even if he does not go into detail I should like to hear


why he feels more time should be allocated to the debate.

Mr. Stallard: My hon. Friend will have to start again.

Mr. McNamara: My hon. Friend tempts me, but—ne nos inducas in tentationem—I shall resist the temptation. I obviously do not have the gift of succinct argument to persuade my hon. Friend. Perhaps some of my hon. Friends will persuade him of the value of the course of action that I urge.
The hon. Member for Armagh—from a sedentary position—has said that the same argument about democratic control applies to Class X as applied to Class IX and that is true. However, there is a distinction between the Six Counties and the rest of Britain. The health and hospital services here are to undergo surgery which may make them more representative.
In Britain we can regularly question the Ministers responsible for the Department of Health and Social Security about the administration of the service. It could be argued that the same opportunity lies with hon. Members for Northern Ireland, but there is an important distinction. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is merely one in a queue of Ministers and he replies for the whole gamut of Government Departments in Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom Minister, on his one day, answers merely for the sins and omissions of his own Department.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: The Secretary of State for Social Services has one advantage. He comes on at 2.30 and not in the middle of the night.

Mr. McNamara: There have been occasions when it might have been better if the Minister had never come on at all. My hon. Friend has made a valid point.
When looking at the strange question of administration, we find that expenditure on the Northern Ireland Assembly is to be increased by £19,000. I am at a loss to know why we are spending money on an Assembly to pass measures when that Assembly does not exist. We have heard in the past of rule by the god-

fathers, but this is ridiculous. We should be able to discuss the future of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the strange role that it has to play.
Class XI, sub-head 7 shows an appropriation in aid of £128,000 for the expenses of information services and a grant in aid. Four and a half hours is not long enough to explain the improvements that have to be made within that department. It is obvious from the comments made today about Harland and Wolff, about the gas industry, about the Assembly in Northern Ireland and so on, that there is a great deal of information yet to be given to hon. Members by that department, and, presumably, a great deal of information to be given to the information services themselves. It might help if they knew that the Northern Ireland Assembly is in limbo. This ignorance probably accounts for the strange messages that we receive from time to time.
According to the explanatory note to the Draft Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979, laid before Parliament under the Northern Ireland Act 1974, schedule 1, for approval by resolution by each House of Parliament, we have to discuss in only four and a half hours the whole economic future of Northern Ireland—the changes that are to be referred to today by the Minister, the operation of the strange ugly face of capitalism in the Six Counties, the reduction of employment at Harland and Wolff, the increasing of energy costs, with consequent difficulties in Northern Ireland, the cuts in social services and employment services and the £35 million to which the Secretary of State has referred in the past.
That is not the way that we should proceed. The House has been insulted by the Government's scheduling of business for this week. I am sure that the Leader of the House enjoyed the support and sympathy of many wives and children when he declared so movingly—almost passionately—last Thursday that we should depart early to join our families. That is a right, proper and humane attitude. In the past many of us, on both sides of the House, would have welcomed that attitude. Nevertheless, one of the duties and responsibilities of those elected to the House is to protect the interests of constituents. Another is to try to debate


properly matters that come before the House.
It is a well accepted fact that those who have taken part in Northern Ireland debates in the early hours of the morning—interesting, amusing, erudite and clever though they may be—have felt the lack of a stimulus from more of our colleagues, sometimes from Northern Ireland, sometimes from the remainder of Britain, whom we would have welcomed into our debates to help us to shape the economic future of the Province. I do not believe that those hon. Members will be in the House tonight. They may be tempted to believe, by the way that the Government are treating the problems, that somehow or other the Province and what happens there is not of importance to the rest of Britain.
It is a matter of supreme importance to the rest of Britain. Soldiers of the British Army are being killed in the Six Counties. Members of the police force, the UDR and the auxiliary forces are constantly under threat and attack. The economy of that area is being suppressed. The natural genius of the people of the Six Counties cannot flower because of the unhappy division within the Six Counties themselves, and within the island of Ireland as a whole. We should not have only four and a half hours, nor should we debate this matter after 10 o'clock. We should have the whole day that we were promised.
If the amendment is defeated by the Lobby fodder or the payroll vote
emerging from their sub-committee meetings after debating the death of a thousand cuts for the rest of the population, I shall ask my hon. Friends to join me in voting against discussing the matter at all tonight. We should then have only an hour and a half, but that would show the measure of contempt that the Government have for Northern Ireland's problems. That is what they have shown by this arrangement in the first place.
This undertaking has been changed to permit the passage of a mere Competition Bill so that the Government could wave a piece of paper at their party conference to show their triumph. No Committee would have discussed the Bill and there would be nothing to stop the Government issuing press statements and written answers, some of which we should never

see, to show their virility. The Government have said that pure doctrinaire politics, mere cosmetics, are more important than a proper debate of these problems.

Mr. Maclennan: My hon. Friend has not greatly strengthened his case for extending the Northern Ireland debate by minimising the importance of the Competition Bill. The complaint of many hon. Members is that the tactics for which the Leader of the House is responsible have resulted in an important Bill, abolishing the Price Commission and affecting the rights of every citizen against unjustifiable price increases, being slipped under the carpet. The Leader of the House has sat silently, and so far as I know has not yet sought your approval, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to postpone the Second Reading of the Competition Bill, in which many of us are very interested and which should not be debated so late.

Mr. McNamara: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, whose experience under the last Government is well known. However, if I were to pursue that matter I might be ruled out of order.
I am not underestimating the importance of that Bill, but the Government are overestimating its effect on their party conference. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) knows much more about the Price Commission and its workings than I could ever hope to know but the Government have done their dirty work through many of the diktats that they have issued and the Bill is really only the panegyric over the grave of a good idea.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Rather than go to the Tory Party conference and wave this piece of paper, would the Government not do better to persuade the conference to spend a whole day discussing the problems of Northern Ireland?

Mr. McNamara: That would be marvellous, but when the Government cannot be persuaded to act in that way in the House, it is difficult to see how they could do so at their conference. To be fair, our own party conference has not often been keen to debate these matters and some motions on the subject have been very wild. But that is democracy: our subjects for discussion are not


arranged in the way that is common in the Tory Party.
By allotting four and a half hours after 10 o'clock the Government have admitted their guilt over their treatment of Northern Ireland. They have said, in effect "Northern Ireland is down for discussion on Monday, but we need this Bill to wave at our party conference to show that we are pursuing policies of increasing inflation and unemployment in defiance of our election promises. Perhaps we have a problem over Northern Ireland. Some constitutional issues have to be decided before the recess, but we cannot allow only an hour and a half after all the things that we said about Northern Ireland in opposition. We shall therefore try to meet the needs of the House in another way."
Therefore, they probably came to an agreement—perhaps through the usual channels, although I hope not. Perhaps they entered into discussions with the hon. Member for Antrim, North who now sits on their side of the House—

Mr. James Wellbeloved: A squalid understanding.

Mr. McNamara: No, those are not the words that I was looking for, but I should be grateful for some suggestions.
I believe that the Government decided on three extra hours, on the following reasoning: "There are only 12 Northern Ireland Members now, and they do not hold the balance of power, so we do not need to worship at the shrine any longer. It is easier to give them three hours than six seats. We shall therefore debate the affairs of Northern Ireland from 10 p.m. to 2.30 or 3 a.m."
That is how they showed their guilt, and we should not accept it. We should not accept the diktat of a Government who, for pure party reasons, want to rush through the competition legislation. Important matters need to be discussed affecting Northern Ireland.

Mr. John Prescott: White fish.

Mr. McNamara: My hon. Friend is right. The problems of fisheries can be discussed under the Appropriation order. That might lead into a discussion of the common fisheries policy and the effect on fishermen around Northern Ireland and

in my constituency. In the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved), a "squalid understanding" might be reached with the Commissioners after the House rises which would be neither wise nor sensible. If we are to discuss all the topics involved, four and a half hours is not enough.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: My hon. Friend has proved the point. He has been speaking for over an hour and he has not touched upon any of those topics. If he mentions just one of those topics he will take up the allocated time.

Mr. McNamara: My hon. Friend is perhaps a little more optimistic than I about my chances of catching Mr. Speaker's eye when we are discussing Northern Ireland later in the evening.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): The hon. Member is clearly reaching his peroration. Will he keep it within reasonable bounds so that I shall be able to inform him of the Government's intention?

Mr. McNamara: I am prepared to give way to the Leader of the House so that we may hear of his intention and then I shall resume my speech.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am not persuaded by the hon. Gentleman's arguments and I need more than an intervention in his speech to make my statement.

Mr. McNamara: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. I do not seek to enter into competition with the Leader of the House. I have noted what he has said and the House will welcome the opportunity to hear from him. The Government have a responsibility.
The Leader of the House had an opportunity to inform the House of the Government's intention. However, the motion was moved by a Whip. The motion appears in the name of the Prime Minister. She could appear at the pulpit and give us the benefit of her wisdom. That could have prevented me from having to tread this delicate tightrope, trying to ensure that the Government provide us with a reasonable amount of time.
Some of my hon. Friends have interjected to assist me. If the Government intend to accept my amendment the main burden of the argument remains. The argument not only involves the length of the debate but the timing of it. We were given—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must discuss one amendment at a time.

Mr. McNamara: I was not intending to move another amendment because I have yet to hear what the Leader of the House has to say. I was arguing the consequences of the House accepting my amendment.

Mr. Stanley Newens: My hon. Friend has given many reasons why the House should be given more time to discuss Northern Ireland. I accept what he has said. Northern Ireland is a vital subject which too often the House has pushed to one side.
The Government are seeking to rush through many other measures this week. There are a number of other subjects which should be discussed before we adjourn for the summer. Does my hon. Friend recognise that by pushing Northern Ireland into the background they are acting in a way in which they have acted over many other topics?

Mr. McNamara: The Government are paying attention to too many subjects. They would do well to leave some of them alone. Some of the other business for this week—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Gentleman please confine himself to the timing of this debate?

Mr. McNamara: I was arguing about business being taken after 10 o'clock. I was illustrating that too much business is being taken after 10 o'clock. That is a contempt of the House. Not only should we not have to discuss Northern Ireland after 10 o'clock but we should have proper debates on the many other issues which are of fundamental importance to our constituents.
The Government won the election. I am a democrat. I am entitled to argue about what the Government are seeking to do. It is no part of the democratic system for a Government to issue diktat

after diktat and order after order for debate late at night. The population must understand what is going on. They may decide in favour of the Government or against. That is what democracy is about. However, democracy can exist only when there is informed and proper debate. That is impossible in the early hours of the morning.
The Government say that we must discuss important matters after 10 o'clock tonight but it is not what they were elected to do.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: The Government have not behaved as one on this matter. During business questions on Thursday the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) reminded the Leader of the House that he had previously congratulated him on arranging a debate on Northern Ireland at a civilised hour. He asked the Leader of the House to consider taking the Appropriation order before the Second Reading of the Competition Bill. Government Members are as deeply embarrassed as we are enraged about what the Government Front Bench are doing.

Mr. McNamara: It is not up to me to come to the defence of the hon. Member for Epping Forest. I made honourable mention of the hon. Member for Epping Forest in my remarks. The hon. Member congratulated his own Front Bench on the civilised way in which they proposed to discuss Northern Ireland affairs. In some ways that prompted me to make my present observations.
When discussing Northern Ireland we must have time, clear minds and an opportunity to examine the arguments. We must be able to listen to them, to understand them and appreciate their texture. But we are not able to do that in the time allotted to us today.
The Leader of the House gave an indication that he might have something to say on these matters but, regrettably, when I gave him the opportunity briefly to do so, he declined the invitation. But the heart has its reasons, and so does the Leader of the House, no doubt. Nevertheless, I am left to wonder what the right hon. Gentleman might be minded to say.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has it in mind to drop the firearms order for tonight. If he does that, it may be of added interest to know his reasons. It seems to me that to enter upon an important matter such as the firearms order after 4 o'clock, or perhaps 3 o'clock, in the morning is a very shabby way to treat a matter of some significance both in relation to Northern Ireland and in relation to certain English matters, especially with regard to air rifles and so on. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would offer to give us some information about that.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I was not entirely convinced by the hon. Gentleman's eloquence, but during the further quarter of an hour during which he has been speaking he has convinced me of his case, and it is the Government's intention to accept his amendment.

Mr. McNamara: I am much obliged for that move on the Government's part. I think that it is the first Labour success in this Parliament, and I thank the Leader of the House.
Perhaps I may now turn my attention to the motion, as amended.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must move his amendment first.

Mr. McNamara: I have now to move my amendment. I am much obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I beg to move, as a manuscript amendment to the Question, to leave out from "sitting" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof
the Motion relating to the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order may be proceeded with until any hour.
I say at once that I am most grateful to the Leader of the House and to the Government for their willingness to accept my manuscript amendment. It would not have been necessary had they not been so inconsiderate or, perhaps, thick-skinned as to seek to push this matter as they have, but their object and intention, apparently, was to press through easily and quickly questions relating to fundamental matters in Northern Ireland, getting them through without consideration for the interests of the House. But now the Leader of the House

has conceded the point and said that we may debate these matters in the early hours of the morning.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I have been patiently trying to follow my hon. Friend's argument. I must tell him that I am not in favour of his amendment, and I hope at least to have the opportunity to vote on it, but at this stage I ask my hon. Friend to clarify one point. If his manuscript amendment is carried, will it mean that we can also take the firearms order tonight, or is that automatically ruled out?

Mr. McNamara: It is not for me to say what the Government's intentions will be on that order, but if the debate on the Appropriation order were to go as far as 11 o'clock in the morning—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I heard the intervention. We are not discussing that matter now. We are on the amendment to which the hon. Gentleman is speaking. Does he wish to continue his speech in moving that amendment?

Mr. McNamara: I am in fact doing that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving me—

Mr. Newens: Will my hon. Friend give way? There is some doubt among us on the Labour Benches regarding the terms of his amendment. It is not clear whether discussion will continue after 10 o'clock, and I wonder whether my hon. Friend will clarify some of the points on his amendment which trouble us.

Mr. McNamara: The business motion in the Prime Minister's name is as follows:
That, at this day's sitting, Standing Order No. 3 shall apply to the Motion relating to the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order with the substitution of half-past Two o'clock or four and a half hours after it has been entered upon, whichever is the later, for the provisions in paragraph (b) of the Standing Order.
I appreciate that not all my hon. Friends will have seen my amendment because it is a manuscript amendment, but it suggests that we leave out from the word "sitting" to the end and add:
the Motion relating to the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order may be proceeded with until any hour.


That is the substitution which I have proposed, and I understand that the motion will be thus amended.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: I know that my hon. Friend is not responsible—he is probably very glad of it—for what the Government do or say, but I am not clear how matters will go since the reference in the motion is to
half-past Two o'clock or four and a half hours after it has been entered upon".
Does that mean 2·30 p.m.—that is, 14.·30—or does it mean 2·30 a.m? As I read it, the reference is to half-past two, and we have already passed half-past two. The Government's motion itself is not clear. Perhaps my hon. Friend could try to make matters clear when speaking to his amendment.

Mr. McNamara: I am not sure that I am the best person to help my hon. Friend, because we do not have for the rules of the House the equivalent of our interpretation of statute legislation. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend could get valuable assistance from the Clerk at the Table or from the Table Office. All of us find most courteous and helpful advice from that source on matters of interpretation. Indeed, hon. Members have always taken pride in the impartial and objective assistance which they receive from all the servants of the House, and I commend that course to my hon. Friend.
As I understand it, the Leader of the House is prepared to accept my amendment, so that, after the Division which will be pressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford, we shall probably be able to discuss the matter for any time we like after 10 o'clock. However, for the various reasons which some of my hon. Friends have outlined during interjections during my speech, there are some of us who would find it difficult to support that procedure, since we believe that, despite the Government's concession, we shall still be forced to debate matters of supreme importance in the middle of the night.
I am grateful to the Leader of the House for accepting my amendment. However, I understand the reasons of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford for not accepting it. When the time comes to discuss the business motion,

I shall be grateful, Mr. Speaker, to have an opportunity of addressing the House again.

6.10 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) on his stamina in moving the amendment. I am glad that I was able to make a positive response. It is the Government's intention to accept the amendment, so that the Northern Ireland debate will be open-ended. No great point of principle is involved.
In suggesting a debate of four and a half hours I was responding to the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) at business questions last week when he asked for a debate of four hours. The Government provided four and a half hours. That was broadly in accordance with precedent.
It is relevant to look back over the past few years to ascertain the time that was allowed for the various Northern Ireland Appropriation orders. For example, in 1976 the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 was laid on 22 June and approved on the Floor of the House on Friday 23 July, when it was debated from 5.33 p.m. to 9.13 p.m. Before Opposition Members become too eloquent in denouncing the Government for the time that they have allotted, they should remember what they did in a similar situation. The Labour Government set the example of debating the Northern Ireland order on a Friday evening, which surely cannot be said to be the most convenient time for the House.
The Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) 1977 Order was debated on Friday 1 July from 12.24 p.m. to 3.44 p.m.—a shorter time than we provided in the motion. On both occasions the debates took place on a Friday, and late on a Friday on the first occasion.
In 1978 the order was laid on 10 July and the debate was taken from 12.15 a.m. on Tuesday 18 July to 12.38 a.m. The Appropriation (No. 4) (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 was laid on 12 November 1978 and debated on Monday 1 December from 7.12 p.m. to 11.06 p.m. The Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 was laid on 19 February 1979. The debate
 

took place on Wednesday 7 March 1979 from 6.36 p.m. to 11.30 p.m.
In providing for a debate of four and a half hours the Government followed precedent. I shall say a few words about written answers, to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Epping Forest): Will my right hon. Friend take into consideration that a number of us hoped that we would not merely follow the precedent of the previous Administration but would do rather better? Although it is not possible to do so before the Summer Recess, I urge my right hon. Friend to consider the whole issue of Northern Ireland business for when we return after the recess.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Yes, I am most willing to respond to my hon. Friend's suggestion. I have already expressed to Northern Ireland Members my regret at the inconvenience caused them by having the debate at a late hour. My argument was addressed not to my hon. Friend but to those who were complaining about the limited time available.

Mr. McNamara: Mr. McNamara rose—

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The written answer procedure was the one that is normally followed. The answer is supplied to the Member who has asked the question and it is placed in the Library and made available to the press. On occasions, when there are questions of special interest, replies are sent to certain other Members who have a special interest in the question and the answer. That is the normal procedure, and it was followed on the occasion to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Having accepted the hon. Gentleman's amendment, I hope that we may proceed to our business without further delay.

Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale): I would wish—

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Michael Jopling): The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Michael Jopling) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question put, That the Question be now put:—

The House divided: Ayes 230, Noes 180.

Division No. 74]
AYES
[6.17 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Colvin, Michael
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)


Aitken, Jonathan
Corrie, John
Grist, Ian


Ancram, Michael
Costain, A. P.
Grylls, Michael


Arnold, Tom
Cranborne, Viscount
Gummer, John Selwyn


Aspinwall, Jack
Critchley, Julian
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Speithorne)
Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Hampson, Dr. Keith


Atkins, Robert (Preston North)
Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Hannam, John


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Darrell, Stephen
Haselhurst, Alan


Banks, Robert
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael


Bell, Ronald
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Hawkins, Paul


Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)
Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Hawksley, Warren


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Durant, Tony
Hayhoe, Barney


Berry, Hon Anthony
Dykes, Hugh
Heath, Rt Hon Edward


Best, Keith
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Henderson, Barry


Bevan, David Gilroy
Elliott, Sir William
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Emery, Peter
Hicks, Robert


Biggs-Davison, John
Eyre, Reginald
Higgins, Terence L.


Blaker, Peter
Fairgrieve, Russell
Nill, James


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Holland, Philip (Carlton)


Bowden, Andrew
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Hordern, Peter


Brains, Sir Bernard
Fookes, Miss Janet
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Brooke, Hon Peter
Forman, Nigel
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Sc'thorpe)
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Fry, Peter
Jessel, Toby


Buck, Antony
Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey


Budgen, Nick
Gardiner, George (Relgate)
Jopling, Rt Hon. Michael


Bulmer, Esmond
Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith


Butcher, John
Garel-Jones, Tristan
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Glyn, Dr Alan
King, Rt Hon Tom


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Goodhart, Philip
Kitson, Sir Timothy


Channon, Paul
Goodhew, Victor
Knight, Mrs Jill


Chapman, Sydney
Goodlad, Alastair
Lang, Ian


Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Gower, Sir Raymond
Langford-Holt, Sir John


Clark, William (Croydon South)
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Lawrence, Ivan


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Gray, Hamish
Lawson, Nigel


Clegg, Walter
Grieve, Percy
Le Merchant, Spencer


Cockeram, Eric
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)
Lester, Jim (Beeston)




Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Sproat, Iain


Luce, Richard
Parkinson, Cecil
Squire, Robin


McAdden, Sir Stephen
Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Stanbrook, Ivor


McCrindle, Robert
Patten, John (Oxford)
Stanley, John


Macfarlane, Neil
Pattie, Geoffrey
Steen, Anthony


MacGregor, John
Pawsey, James
Stevens, Martin


Mackay, John (Argyll)
Percival, Sir Ian
Steward, Ian (Hitchin)


McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)
Peyton, Rt Hon John
Stokes, John


McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Pink, R. Bonner
Stradling Thomas J.


Madel, David
Porter, George
Tebbit, Norman


Major, John
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Temple-Morris, Peter


Marlow, Antony
Prior, Rt Hon James
Thompson, Donald


Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Proctor, K. Harvey
Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)


Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Mates, Michael
Raison, Timothy
Trotter, Neville


Mather, Carol
Rathbone, Tim
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)
Vaughan, Dr Gerard


Mawby, Ray
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Viggers, Peter


Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Rhodes James, Robert
Wakeham, John


Mayhew, Patrick
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Waldegrave, Hon William


Mellor, David
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Walker, Bill (Perth &amp; E Perthshire)


Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove &amp; Redditch)
Rossi, Hugh
Waller, Gary


Mills, Iain (Meriden)
Rost, Peter
Walters, Dennis


Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Royle, Sir Anthony
Ward, John


Moate, Roger
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Warren, Kenneth


Monro, Hector
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Montgomery, Fergus
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Wells, P. Bowen (Hert'fd&amp;Stev'nage)


Moore, John
Shelton, William (Streatham)
Wheeler, John


Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Shepherd, Richard(Aldridge-Br'hills)
Wickenden, Keith


Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Shersby, Michael
Wilkinson, John


Myles, David
Silvester, Fred
Winterton, Nicholas


Nelson, Anthony
Sims, Roger
Wolfson, Mark


Neubert, Michael
Skeet, T. H. H.
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Newton, Tony
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)
Younger, Rt Hon George


Normanton, Tom
Speed, Keith



Nott, Rt Hon John
Speller, Tony
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Onslow, Cranley
Spence, John
Mr. David Waddington and


Oppenhelm, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)
Mr. John Cope.




NOES


Abse, Leo
Dobson, Frank
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Alton, David
Dormand, J. D.
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Dubs, Alfred
Kerr, Russell


Armstrong, Ernest
Duffy, A. E. P.
Kinnock, Nell


Ashton, Joe
Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale)
Lambie, David


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Eadie, Alex
Lamborn, Harry


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Eastham, Ken
Lamond, James


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Leighton, Ronald


Beith, A. J.
English, Michael
Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Evans, John (Newton)
Lofthouse, Geoffrey


Bidwell, Sydney
Ewing, Harry
Lyons, Edward (Bradford West)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Faulds, Andrew
McCartney, Hugh


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)
Field, Frank
McDonald, Dr Oonagh


Bradley, Tom
Fitt, Gerard
McElhone, Frank


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Flannery, Martin
McGuire, Michael (Ince)


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McKay, Allen (Penistone)


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
McKelvey, William


Buchan, Norman
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Maclennan, Robert


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Freud, Clement
McMahon, Andrew


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)


Campbell-Savours, Dale
George, Bruce
McNamara, Kevin


Carmichael, Neil
Golding, John
McWilliam, John


Clark, David (South Shields)
Gourlay, Harry
Marks, Kenneth


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)


Cohen, Stanley

Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)


Coleman Donald
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mason, Rt Hon Roy


Conlan, Bernard
Hardy, Peter
Maxton, John


Cook, Robin F.
Hardy, Peter
Maynard, Miss Joan


Cowans, Harry
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Meacher, Michael


Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)
Healey, Rt. Hon Denis
Millan, Rt Hon Bruce


Crowther, J. S.
Heffer, Eric S.
Miller, Dr M S (East Kilbride)


Cryer, Bob
Hogg, Norman (E Dunbartonshire)
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)


Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Homewood, William
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)
Hooley, Frank
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)


Dalyell, Tam
Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)
Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)


Davidson, Arthur
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Morton, George


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
John, Brynmor
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland


Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Newens, Stanley


Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Johnson, Walter (Derby South)
Oakes, Gordon


Dempsey, James
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Ogden, Eric


Dixon, Donald
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
O'Neill, Martin




Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Sever, John
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Silverman, Julius
Wellbeloved, James


Palmer, Arthur
Skinner, Dennis
Welsh, Michael


Park, George
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)
White, Frank R. (Bury &amp; Radcliffe)


Parker, John
Soley, Clive
Whitehead, Phillip


Parry, Robert
Spearing, Nigel
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Pendry, Tom
Spriggs, Leslie
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Stallard, A. W.
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Prescott, John
Steel, Rt Hon David
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)


Race, Reg
Stoddart, David
Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)


Radice, Giles
Stott, Roger
Winnick, David


Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
Woodall, Alec


Richardson, Miss Jo
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Wright, Miss Sheila


Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle East)
Young, David (Bolton East)


Roper, John
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)



Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)
Tinn, James
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Urwin, Rt Hon Tom
Mr. Ted Graham an


Rowlands, Ted
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.
Mr. Joseph Dean.


Sandelson, Neville
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 268, Noes 109.

Division No. 75]
AYES
[6.29 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Dickens, Geoffrey
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)


Aitken, Jonathan
Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Holland, Philip (Carlton)


Alexander, Richard
Dorrell, Stephen
Hordern, Peter


Alton, David
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Ancram, Michael
Dover, Denshore
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)


Arnold, Tom
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Aspinwall, Jack
Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Durant, Tony
Jessel, Toby


Atkins, Robert (Preston North)
Dykes, Hugh
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey


Atkinson, David (B'mouth East)
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Jopling, Rt Hon. Michael


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Egger, Timothy
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith


Banks, Robert
Elliott, Sir William
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Emery, Peter
King, Rt Hon Tom


Beith, A. J.
Eyre, Reginald
Kitson, Sir Timothy


Bell, Ronald
Fairgrieve, Russell
Knight, Mrs Jill


Bendall, Vivian
Faith, Mrs. Sheila
Lang, Ian


Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Langford-Holt, Sir John


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Lawrence, Ivan


Berry, Hon Anthony
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Lawson, Nigel


Best, Keith
Fookes, Miss Janet
Lee, John


Bevan, David Gilroy
Forman, Nigel
Le Merchant, Spencer


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark


Biggs-Davison, John
Fox, Marcus
Lester, Jim (Beeston)


Blackburn, John
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)


Blaker, Peter
Fry, Peter
Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)


Body, Richard
Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Luce, Richard


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Gardner, Edward (South Fydle)
Lyell, Nicholas


Bowden, Andrew
Garel-Jones, Tristan
McAdden, Sir Stephen


Braine, Sir Bernard
Glyn, Dr Alan
McCrindle, Robert


Bright, Graham
Goodhart, Philip
Macfarlane, Neil


Brinton, Timothy
Goodhew, Victor
MacGregor, John


Brooke, Hon Peter
Goodled, Alastair
Mackay, John (Argyll)


Brown, Michael (Brigg &amp; Sc'thorpe)
Gower, Sir Raymond
McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Gray, Hamish
Madel, David


Buck, Antony
Grieve, Percy
Major, John


Budgen, Nick
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)
Marlow, Antony


Bulmer, Esmond
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Butcher, John
Grist, Ian
Marten, Neil (Banbury)


Cadbury, Jocelyn
Grylis, Michael
Mates, Michael


Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Gummer, John Selwyn
Mather, Carol


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Maude, Rt Hon Angus


Channon, Paul
Hampson, Dr. Keith
Mawby, Ray


Chapman, Sydney
Hannam, John
Mawhinney, Dr Brian


Clark, Hon Man (Plymouth, Sutton)
Haselhurst, Alan
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Clark, William (Croydon South)
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Mayhew, Patrick


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Hawkins, Paul
Mellor, David


Clegg, Walter
Hawksley, Warren
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove &amp; Redditch)


Cockeram, Eric
Hayhoe, Barney
Mills, Iain (Meriden)


Colvin, Michael
Heath, Rt Hon Edward
Mills, Peter (West Devon)


Corrie, John
Heddle, John
Moate, Roger


Costain, A. P.
Henderson, Barry
Molyneaux, James


Cranborne, Viscount
Hicks, Robert
Monro, Hector


Critchley, Julian
Higgins, Terence L.
Montgomery, Fergus


Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Hill, James
Moore, John




Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Rhodes James, Robert
Tebbit, Norman


Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Temple-Morris, Peter


Murphy, Christopher
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)



Myles, David
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)


Needham, Richard
Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)
Thornton, George


Nelson, Anthony
Rossi, Hugh
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Neubert, Michael
Rost, Peter
Trippier, David


Newton, Tony
Royle, Sir Anthony
Trotter, Neville


Normanton, Tom
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Nott, Rt Hon John
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman
Vaughan, Dr Gerard


Onslow, Cranley
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Viggers, Peter


Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Shelton, William (Streatham)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Page, John (Harrow, West)
Shepherd, Richard(Aldridge-Br'hills)
Wakeham, John


Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Shersby, Michael
Waldegrave, Hon William


Parkinson, Cecil
Silvester, Fred
Walker, Bill (Perth &amp; E Perthshire)


Parris, Matthew
Sims, Roger
Wall, Patrick


Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Skeet, T. H. H.
Waller, Gary


Patten, John (Oxford)
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)
Walters, Dennis


Pattie, Geoffrey
Speed, Keith
Ward, John


Pawsey, James
Speller, Tony
Warren, Kenneth


Percival, Sir Ian
Spence, John
Watson, John


Peyton, Rt Hon John
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Pink, R. Bonner
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)
Wells, P. Bowen (Hert'fd&amp;Stev'nage)


Pollock, Alexander
Sproat, Iain
Wheeler, John


Porter, George
Squire, Robin
Wickenden, Keith


Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)
Stanbrook, Ivor
Wilkinson, John


Price, David (Eastleigh)
Stanley, John
Winterton, Nicholas


Prior, Rt Hon James
Steel, Rt Hon David
Wolfson, Mark


Proctor, K. Harvey
Steen, Anthony
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Stevens, Martin
Younger, Rt Hon George


Raison, Timothy
Steward, Ian (Hitchin)



Rathbone, Tim
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)
Stokes, John
Mr. David Waddington and


Rees-Davies, W. R.
Stradling Thomas J.
Mr. John Cope.


Renton, Tim






NOES


Abse, Leo
Flannery, Martin
Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)


Ashton, Joe
Freud, Clement
Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
George, Bruce
Morton, George


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Golding, John
Newens, Stanley


Bidwell, Sydney
Graham, Ted
Oakes, Gordon


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
O'Neill, Martin


Bradley, Tom
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Parker, John


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Parry, Robert


Brown, Hugh D. (Proven)
Hardy, Peter
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)


Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Heffer, Eric S.
Race, Reg


Buchan, Norman
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)
Richardson, Miss Jo


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Homewood, William
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)


Carmichael, Neil
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Roper, John


Clark, David (South Shields)
Johnson, Walter (Derby South)
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)


Cohen, Stanley
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Short, Mrs. Renée


Conian, Bernard
Kinnock, Neil
Skinner, Dennis


Cowans, Harry
Lambie, David
Soley, Clive


Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)
Lamborn, Harry
Spriggs, Leslie


Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)
Lamond, James
Stoddart, David


Crowther, J. S.
Leighton, Ronald
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Cryer, Bob
Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Dalyell, Tam
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Welsh, Michael


Davidson, Arthur
McDonald, Dr Oonagh
White, Frank R. (Bury &amp; Radcliffe)


Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Whitehead, Phillip


Dempsey, James
McMahon, Andrew
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Dixon, Donald
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Dobson, Frank
McWilliam, John
Winnick, David


Dubs, Alfred
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Woodall, Alec


Duffy, A. E. P.
Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Wright, Miss Sheila


Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Maxton, John



Eastham, Ken
Maynard, Miss Joan
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


English, Michael
Meacher, Michael
Mr. James Wellbeloved and


Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Miller, Dr M S (East Kilbride)
Mr. Robin F. Cook.


Fitt, Gerard

Mr. Jopling: Mr. Jopling rose in his place, and Question accordingly agreed to. claimed to move, That the Main Question, as amended, be now put.

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The main Question has been claimed. The Question is the main


Question, as amended. [Interruption.] Order. I will take the point of order of the right hon. Gentleman before I put the main Question.

Mr. Foot: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for taking the point of order that I raise. I gather that the main Question was claimed by the Patronage Secretary. Naturally, it is entirely within your discretion whether you accept that claim, but I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that what occurred before the vote on the closure is one reason, among others, why you should not accept the motion when it is claimed.
I should have thought that there has very rarely been a state of affairs in a debate when the Leader of the House has made a statement and the official Opposition spokesman has been denied any chance of participating in the debate. If you were to accept the proposal to claim the main Question that would mean that the official Opposition spokesman would not have had the opportunity of putting the Opposition's case on this motion. Therefore, I ask you to rule that you will not accept the main Ques-

tion being claimed. That would mean that we could revert to the debate on the main Question, upon which there has so far been no debate whatever. I emphasise, Mr. Speaker, that so far the debate has been on the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara). If you were to accept the Government's proposal it would mean that you had ruled from the Chair that no debate on the main Question should take place. I submit that that would be quite contrary to any precedent in this House.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Far from being contrary to precedent, I would be following precedent in this matter. I have taken into account everything that has happened during the course of this debate. I had indicated to the House that I was accepting the main Question.

Main Question, as amended, put accordingly:—

The House divided: Ayes 269, Noes 168.

Division No. 76]
AYES
[6.44 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Cadbury, Jocelyn
Freud, Clement


Aitken, Jonathan
Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Fry, Peter


Alexander, Richard
Carlisle, John (Luton West)
Fry, Peter


Alexander, Richard
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.


Alton, David
Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Gardiner, George (Reigate)


Ancram, Michael
Channon, Paul
Gardner, Edward (South Fylde)


Arnold, Tom
Chapman, Sydney
Garel-Junes, Tristan


Aspinwall, Jack
Clark, Hon Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Glyn, Dr Alan


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Clark, William (Croydon South)
Goodhart, Philip


Atkins, Robert (Preston North)
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Goodhew, Victor


Atkinson, David (B'mouth East)
Clegg, Walter
Goodlad, Alastair


Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Cockeram, Eric
Gower, Sir Raymond


Banks, Robert
Colvin, Michael
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)


Beaumont-Dark, Anthony
Corrie, John
Gray, Hamish


Beith, A. J.
Costain, A. P.
Grieve, Percy


Bell, Ronald
Cranborne, Viscount
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St Edmunds)


Bendall, Vivian
Critchley, Julian
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)


Benyon, Thomas (Abingdon)
Dean, Paul (North Somerset)
Grist, Ian


Benyon, W. (Buckingham)
Dickens, Geoffrey
Grylls, Michael


Berry, Hon Anthony
Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Gummer, John Selwyn


Best, Keith
Dorrell, Stephen
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Bevan, David Gilroy
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Hampson, Dr. Keith


Biffen, Rt Hon John
du Cann,t Rt Hon Edward
Hannam, John


Biggs-Davison, John
Dunn, Robert (Dartford)
Haselhurst, Alan


Blackburn, John
Durant, Tony
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael


Blaker, Peter
Dykes, Hugh
Hawkins, Paul


Body, Richard
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Hawksley, Warren


Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Eggar, Timothy
Hayhoe, Barney


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Elliott, Sir William
Heath, Rt Hon Edward


Bowden, Andrew
Emery, Peter
Heddle, John


Braine, Sir Bernard
Eyre, Reginald
Henderson, Barry


Bright, Graham
Fairgrieve, Russell
Hicks, Robert


Brinton, Timothy
Faith, Mrs. Sheila
Higgins, Terence L.


Brooke, Hon Peter
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Hill, James


Brown, Michael (Bragg &amp; Sc'thorpe)
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)


Bruce-Gardyne, John
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh N)
Holland, Philip (Carlton)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Fookes, Miss Janet
Hordern, Peter


Buck, Antony
Forman, Nigel
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Budgen, Nick
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Howell, Rt Hon David (Guildford)


Bulmer, Esmond
Fox, Marcus
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)


Butcher, John
Fraser, Peter (South Angus)
Hunt, David (Wirral)




Jessel, Toby
Myles, David
Speller, Tony


Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Needham, Richard
Spence, John


Jopling, Rt Hon. Michael
Nelson, Anthony
Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Neubert, Michael
Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Newton, Tony
Sproat, Iain


King, Rt Hon Tom
Normanton, Tom
Squire, Robin


Kitson, Sir Timothy
Nott, Rt Hon John
Stainton, Keith


Knight, Mrs Jill
Onslow, Cranley
Stanbrook, Ivor


Lang, Ian
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs Sally
Stanley, John


Langford-Holt. Sir John
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Steel, Rt Hon David


Lawrence, Ivan
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Steen, Anthony


Lawson, Nigel
Parkinson, Cecil
Stevens, Martin


Lee, John
Parris, Matthew
Steward, Ian (Hitchin)


Le Marchant, Spencer
Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)


Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Patten, John (Oxford)
Stokes, John


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Pattie, Geoffrey
Stradling Thomas J.


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Pawsey, James
Tebbit, Norman


Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)
Percival, Sir Ian
Temple-Morris, Peter


Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Peyton, Rt Hon John
Thompson, Donald


Luce, Richard
Pink, R. Bonner
Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)


Lyell, Nicholas
Pollock Alexander
Thornton, George


McAdden, Sir Stephen
Porter, George
Townend, John (Bridlington)


McCrindle, Robert
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch (S Down)
Trippier, David


Macfarlane, Neil
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Trotter, Neville


MacGregor, John
Prior, Rt Hon James
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Mackay, John (Argyll)
Proctor, K. Harvey
Vaughan, Dr Gerard


McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Viggers, Peter


McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Raison, Timothy
Wainwright, Richard (Coine Valley)


Madel, David
Rathbone, Tim
Wakeham, John


Major, John
Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)



Marlow, Antony
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Waldegrave, Hon William


Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Renton, Tim
Walker, Bill (Perth &amp; E Perthshire)


Marten, Neil (Banbury)
Rhodes James, Robert
Wall, Patrick


Mates, Michael
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Waller, Gary


Mather, Carol
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Walters, Dennis


Maude, Rt Hon Angus
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Ward, John


Mawby, Ray
Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)
Warren, Kenneth


Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Rossi, Hugh
Watson, John


Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Rost, Peter
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Mayhew, Patrick
Royle, Sir Anthony
Wells, P. Bowen (Hert'fd&amp;Stev'nage)


Mellor, David
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Wheeler, John


Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove &amp; Redditch)
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon Norman
Wickenden, Keith


Mills, Iain (Meriden)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Wilkinson, John


Mills, Peter (West Devon)
Shelton, William (Streatham)
Winterton, Nicholas


Moate, Roger
Shepherd, Richard(Aldridge-Br'hills)
Wolfson, Mark


Molyneaux, James
Shersby, Michael
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Monro, Hector
Silvester, Fred
Younger, Rt Hon George


Montgomery, Fergus
Sims, Roger



Moore, John
Skeet, T. H. H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Smith, Dudley (War. and Leam'ton)
Mr. John Cope and


Morrison. Hon Peter (City of Chester)
Speed, Keith
Mr. David Waddington


Murphy, Christopher






NOES


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Crowther, J. S.
Garrett, John (Norwich S)


Armstrong, Ernest
Cryer, Bob
George, Bruce


Ashton, Joe
Cunningham, George (Islington S)
Golding, John


Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)
Cunningham, Dr John (Whitehaven)
Gourlay, Harry


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Dalyell, Tam
Grant, George (Morpeth)


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Davidson, Arthur
Grant, John (Islington C)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney Central)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)


Bidwell, Sydney
Davis, Terry (B'rm'ham, Stechford)
Hardy, Peter


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur (M'brough)
Dempsey, James
Hattersley, Rt. Hon Roy


Bradley, Tom
Dixon, Donald
Helfer, Eric S.


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Dobson, Frank
Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)


Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S)
Dormand, J. D.
Home Robertson, John


Buchan, Norman
Dubs, Alfred
Homewood, William


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Duffy, A. E. P.
Hooley, Frank


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Eadie, Alex
Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)


Campbell, Ian
Eastham, Ken
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
John, Brynmor


Carmichael, Neil
English, Michael
Johnson, James (Hull West)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Johnson, James (Hull West)


Clark, David (South Shields)
Evans, John (Newton)
Johnson, Walter (Derby South)


Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)
Ewing, Harry
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)


Cohen, Stanley
Faulds, Andrew
Jones, Barry (East Flint)


Coleman, Donald
Field, Frank
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Conian, Bernard
Fitt, Gerard
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Cook, Robin F.
Flannery, Martin
Kerr, Russell


Cowans, Harry
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Kinnock, Neil


Cox, Tom (Wandsworth, Tooting)
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Lambie, David


Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill)
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Lamborn, Harry







Lamond, James
Morton, George
Soley, Clive


Leighton, Ronald
Moyle, Rt Hon Roland
Spearing, Nigel


Lewis, Arthur (Newham North West)
Newens, Stanley
Spriggs, Leslie


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Oakes, Gordon
Stallard, A. W.


Lofthouse, Geoffrey
O'Neill, Martin
Steward, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)


McCartney, Hugh
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Stoddart, David


McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Owen, Rt Hon Dr David
Stott, Roger


McElhone, Frank
Palmer, Arthur
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Park, George
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


McKelvey, William
Parker, John
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Maclennan, Robert
Parry, Robert
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


McMahon, Andrew
Pendry, Tom
Wellbeloved, James


McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, Central)
Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Welsh, Michael


McNamara, Kevin
Prescott, John
White, Frank R. (Bury &amp; Radcliffe)


McWilliam, John
Race, Reg
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Marks, Kenneth
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds South)
Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Richardson, Miss Jo
Williams, Sir Thomas (Warrington)


Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee East)


Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)
Wilson, Rt Hon Sir Harold (Huyton)


Maxton, John
Roper, John
Winnick, David


Maynard, Miss Joan
Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)
Woodall, Alec


Millen, Rt Hon Bruce
Rowlands, Ted
Wright, Miss Sheila


Miller, Dr M S (East Kilbride)
Sandelson, Neville
Young, David (Bolton East)


Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
Sever, John



Mitchell, R. C. (Solon, Itchen)
Short, Mrs. Renée
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Silverman, Julius
Mr. James Tinn and


Morris, Rt Hon Charles (Openshaw)
Skinner, Dennis
Mr. Ted Graham.


Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (North Lanarkshire)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the motion relating to the Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order may be proceeded with until any hour.

Mr. Foot: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is not related to the events which occurred earlier. No doubt the House will wish to consider afresh what occurred then, and the precedents relating to it. We on the Opposition Benches will certainly wish to do so, as we think that those events involved a truncation of the debate from our point of view.
My point of order arises from the time that has already been taken out of the debate on the Competition Bill. We are now reaching almost 7 o'clock. If we proceed with the Orders of the Day as has been previously announced—and the Opposition and many other hon. Members objected to the way in which the business was proposed to be dealt with—we should be embarking upon the Second Reading of a major Bill with only three hours left for debate.
The Leader of the House said that he was introducing the Bill at this time in spite of the protests from many quarters in the House precisely because he wanted a full debating period to be available so that the views of hon. Members on all sides could be presented. Clearly, it is not possible to have a proper full debate on a major Second Reading between 7 o'clock and 10 o'clock.
I therefore ask the Leader of the House for an announcement on how we should now proceed. I have alternatives to put to him—we could have put them to the Government previously if the opportunity had been available. Either the Government should say that they are not proceeding with the Second Reading, which I am sure would conform with the desire of the House—if they were to do that, they would be able to provide the full time for a Second Reading of the Bill at a later stage while according full time to the debate tonight on Northern Ireland matters or that they will follow a precedent which occurred some six months ago when a similar situation arose and it was agreed that the Question on the Second Reading should not be put at 10 o'clock but that the debate should be adjourned and the outstanding three hours, which would constitute the full time for the debate, should be provided at some later stage. I trust that the Leader of the House will indicate which of the solutions he prefers to adopt. Either he should say that he will not proceed with the Second Reading—that may be the best course—or that the vote on the Second Reading will not be taken at 10 o'clock and that opportunity will be provided at a later stage for a full debate. The Leader of the House said that he wanted a full debate on the matter. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will rescue the matter by adopting one or other of the alternatives.

Mr. Speaker: The House has decided on the business motion and I now call


the Orders of the Day. I cannot anticipate what will happen at 10 o'clock. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will understand that.

Mr. Wellbeloved: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On my reading of sub-paragraph 1 of Standing Order No. 30, which relates to the effecting of the Closure motion, some serious matters arise which I believe should be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, you were not in the Chamber during the course of the short debate on the manuscript amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) made a lucid speech and, after that, the Leader of the House informed the House that during the last quarter of an hour of my hon. Friend's remarks he had concluded that he should accept the manuscript amendment. I intervened during my hon. Friend's speech to indicate my absolute opposition to his manuscript amendment. I did not have an opportunity to put forward my views but I felt that such a motion, if it were carried, would have a number of consequences. It would put an intolerable strain upon officials and officers of the House. It would also put an intolerable strain upon hon. Members who would be faced with a late sitting tonight and might well have heavy duties later in the week.
Standing Order No. 30 states that the Question shall be put
unless it shall appear to the Chair that such motion is … an infringement of the rights of the minority".
As a single-minded Member having put my opposition to the amendment, I was denied the opportunity, as was any other like-minded hon. Member, of putting a case to the House by the pre-emptive strike of the Patronage Secretary in moving, That the Question be now put. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, you were not in the Chamber at the time and you were probably unaware when you accepted the motion that the rights of minorities were being infringed because, on this occasion, those rights have definitely been infringed.
In the light of those circumstances, although I appreciate that nothing can be

done about the matter today, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if you will indicate that you are prepared to refer the question to the Select Committee on Procedure. That would avoid a minority's rights being inadvertently infringed upon a future occasion. The Select Committee on Procedure should inquire whether a procedure could be established by the outgoing occupant of the Chair or by one of the Clerks at the Table that Mr. Speaker should be informed that hon. Members wished to put a minority view which it had not been possible to put. That can be taken into account in the operation of Standing Order No. 30, which lays precisely that obligation upon the occupant of the Chair. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will take the point of order seriously. There has been an absolute denial of the rights of individual Members to oppose the manuscript amendment.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It may or may not be that I can help the House on the matter. One of the most difficult tasks of the occupant of the Chair is accepting or rejecting an application for Closure. The House has given me complete discretion on the matter and, further, stated that it is not open to discussion. Therefore, I shall not take the point of order on the subject because my duty has been imposed on me by the House to ensure that parliamentary rules are observed. I will consider what the hon. Gentleman has put forward but I shall listen to no points of order about the exercise of the Closure tonight.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved), Mr. Speaker. The occupant of the Chair has the right to decide whether or not there has been adequate debate and whether or not the Closure should be accepted. However, in this case, there was no debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) moved his manuscript amendment, which none of us had seen. The Leader of the House said that he would accept the amendment—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is referring to a matter that I have said is not open to him to discuss. He is beginning to discuss the tact that I


accepted the Closure. I am not prepared to let that be done.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Lewis rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a point that there was no proper debate. He may be of that opinion but I exercised my discretion, as the House expects me to. On that matter there can be no debate.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Lewis rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman has a different point of order that is not about the length of the debate or the number of hon. Members who were not called, he may make that point of order. The other matters come under the heading of my discretion.

Mr. Lewis: I should be grateful, Mr. Speaker, if you would allow me to put my point of order before you attempt to answer it. I was relating a series of events that took place. I am not talking about the question of the Closure and if you will hear me out I shall explain what took place. The Leader of the House spoke and then my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) wanted to speak but was prevented from doing so by the Closure. My point is that before the debate started I gave you notice, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to be called. I am not talking about minority rights but I am talking about debate. Last week I also gave notice that I wished to be called in the debate on capital punishment. On both occasions I was not called. It is also your job—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is making a mistake. He is not going to stand in his place and tell me what my job is. If he pursues that line I shall order him to resume his seat.

Mr. Lewis: I again assert, Mr. Speaker, that it is the job of the occupant of the Chair to see that all hon. Members have a fair crack of the whip. If some do not, all that they can do is to raise the matter with the Chair.

Mr. Speaker: By and large—and I do my best—the House cannot complain that I do not try to ensure a fair debate. If the hon. Gentleman was not called tonight, he was apparently one of a number who were not called. Was that the hon. Gentleman's point of order?

Mr. Lewis: I agree, as every hon. Member will agree, that the occupant of the Chair has a most difficult job. I have paid tribute to the way in which the Speaker carries out his onerous duties. But, with great respect to the Chair, if the occupant of the Chair does not know what has happened, if he has not been advised, and if something happens of which he has not been acquainted, surely hon. Members have the right to explain to Mr. Speaker what has happened—not to criticise or to question—so that he may know, and thus perhaps prevent such happenings in the future. Anyone who has been in the House this afternoon will agree that, outside your knowledge, Mr. Speaker, there have been the most disgraceful, Kremlin-like activities that we have ever seen.

Mr. Speaker: It is true that I was not here for the first hour and five minutes of the speech of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), but I was here for the last quarter of an hour of it. I was also here whilst all the rest of the incidents occurred.
The Clerk will now proceed to read—

Mr. Fitt: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of what you have just said, I take this opportunity to support the point of order made by my right hon. Friend the Shadow Leader of the House, the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot). Today we have had a semi-debate on Northern Ireland. I in no way question what you did with regard to the Closure, Mr. Speaker, but may I point out, without in any way attempting to infringe the Race Relations Act, that the only speaker in that debate was an Englishman, by the name of McNamara, representing an English constituency? That may confuse certain people.
I think that you will take it as a valid point of order, Mr. Speaker, that during the course of today we have heard of matters extraneous to the debate, issues brought before the House by the Government in relation to the Belfast shipyard and the Belfast gas industry, which will lead to more than 3,000 redundancies. That was why Northern Ireland hon. Members who will be affected by the redundancies wanted to take part in a


debate not in the early hours of the morning but when a large number of the new Conservative Members would be here, during the hours of daylight, to hear about the problems of Northern Ireland.
It is for that reason, Mr. Speaker, that I ask you, and through you the Leader of the House, whether it is possible to postpone the Northern Ireland debate until another day, when all the new Conservative Members can be made fully aware of the problems that beset the Government and Northern Ireland.

Mr. Speaker: If we are to maintain the rules of the House at all, I have a responsibility to tell the House that we should be moving away from points of order to the business of the day. Hon. Members know that points of order that are arguments about the Government's timetable should not be raised with me at all. I shall accept only a point of order that is not to do with the timetable or with my earlier ruling. I should be failing the House if I did otherwise.

Mr. Richard Wainwright (Colne Valley): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order is about the reasonable rights of the smaller parties in the House, to which you have always shown yourself entirely sensitive. At the hour that we have now reached—and this is not the responsibility of the Liberal Bench—it will be a physical impossibility for the views of some of the smaller parties to be adequately heard on Second Reading of a major Bill, on which representations from many national and regional organisations and constituency groups have been made to hon. Members. The electorate will be outraged if those views are not ventilated reasonably.

Mr. Speaker: I told the House earlier that I could not anticipate what would happen at 10 o'clock. But I take the hon. Gentleman's point.

Mr. Newens: On a new point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you help the House about the method by which you take points of order? Whilst I in no way question your ruling or anything of the sort, a certain difficulty arose during the course of points of order being taken this evening. After you announced the result of the Division on the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston

upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), a number of hon. Members tried to raise points of order. They were unable to catch your eye, but subsequently my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) succeded in catching your eye to raise a point of order. After that, a number of other Labour hon. Members, including me, rose to ask whether you would take further points of order at that stage. You refused to do so.
That raises an important point of order in itself. I understand that when, in the past, one hon. Member has raised a point of order and it has been accepted, it has always been the custom of the House to take successive points of order on the same matter. I wanted to raise at that stage a point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I can help the hon. Gentleman. Experience has taught me that when any hon. Member prefaces his remarks by saying "Without in any way challenging your ruling, Mr. Speaker", it is time for me to be on the alert. I tell the hon. Gentleman, in case he is in doubt, that it is by no means a rule of the House that if one point is taken, 20 or 30 can follow it—not at all. Discretion is given to the Chair in this matter. All my predecessors exercised it as I do.

Mr. Newens: I in no way wish to challenge your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I am merely asking for an explanation which may be helpful to the House on a future occasion. In this case, you did not take one particular hon. Member after my right hon. Friend. Therefore, perhaps you will clarify the position. I am sure that it cannot be that Privy Councillors have precedence over other hon. Members in this respect.
Surely, it would be reasonable in the normal course of events—or perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you can help the House by explaining when it is not reasonable—for additional points of order to be raised, at least in small numbers, when the principle had been accepted as a result of one right hon. or hon. Member raising such a point.

Mr. Speaker: One thing is certain; no Speaker is expected to give reasons why he has ruled in a given way. The hon.


Gentleman has been here a long time, and he knows that.
If there is a new point of order, I shall take it. But I shall interrupt any hon. Member who seeks to deal with the timetable or business, or with my rulings, in order to prevent us from reaching the stage where the Clerk reads the Orders of the Day.

Mr. Jim Marshall (Leicester, South): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not wish to incur your wrath, but perhaps I may remind you of what happened on 7 December 1978, when you were in the Chair and there was a Supply Day available to the then Opposition on the previous Government's sanctions policies.
You may recall that prior to that debate beginning a fair amount of time had elapsed on what you, Mr. Speaker, would call technical points. When we did get to the business of the day, the Leader of the House—speaking from the Opposition Benches—said:
In these circumstances, may I ask the Leader of the House to tell the House what he intends to do to give us time next week to debate this subject which is vital to hundreds of thousands of workers, and because of the issues of freedom involved, which are of importance to every citizen in this country."—[Official Report, 7 December 1978; Vol. 959, c. 1693.]
That was said after a considerable amount of time had passed. Those issues and principles apply to the Competition Bill.
Finally, may I remind you Mr. Speaker, of what the Prime Minister said when she was the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I told the hon. Gentleman that I would not accept such a point of order. His point has already been made by the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot). I said that I would interrupt anyone dealing with the timetable of business for tonight. I intend to call upon the Clerk to read the Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day — COMPETITION BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.21 p.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Orders of the Day have been read.

Mr. Cryer: My point of order arises from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved). He said that he was opposed to the amendment to the previous business, moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) and he made an interjection during the speech of my hon. Friend. The general rule of the House is that interjections are kept to a minimum. They are merely to elicit information. That is a rule that all of us follow. If we break that rule either you, Mr. Speaker, or a Deputy Speaker, will call us to order and say that the interjection has been too long. That is quite right. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford made the point—and I do not question your decision, Mr. Speaker, but point out an issue of fact—that no opposition had been vented to the proposed amendment.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going back to a point of order on which I have ruled. We are making nonsense of procedure in the House.

Mr. Robin F. Cook (Edinburgh, Central): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask you to elucidate a remark that you made twice during the previous points of order but which remains elliptical to new Members such as myself. You have twice said that you cannot anticipate what will happen at 10 o'clock. I have been unable to find the correct reference in "Erskine May", but may I ask whether you have any discretion as to what you do at 10 o'clock? If you come to the view that the House has not had a full debate on an important Bill, do you have any discretion whether you put the Question to the House? If you do have such discretion, would it not be provident for the Treasury Bench to find


adequate time for the House to debate the measure in full?

Mr. Speaker: When I made that reference I was replying to the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) on a point that he had raised.

Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I fully accept what you have said on all these questions. In order that the House of Commons may deal with the matter would not the best solution be that at five minutes to 10 o'clock—or whenever it may be—a motion for the adjournment of the debate should be moved by the Government, or by the Opposition, and be accepted by the House? If that motion were acknowledged and accepted in advance, we would have a guarantee that there would be a later opportunity for the full debate that we are embarking upon. If the Leader of the House responds to that request now, we shall be able to proceed with the issue. That would put the whole question in order and we would secure the full debate on the Bill, which the Leader of the House insisted was his orginal intention.

Mr. David Stoddart (Swindon): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the raising of points of order I distinctly heard my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) say that he had made representations to you to speak in a certain debate. I am puzzled by that because I had always believed, and acted upon that belief, that hon. Members, when they wish to speak, sit in their places and try to catch Mr. Speaker's eye. If they do not succeed, they are unlucky.
The new idea and practice that is creeping in of Members writing to you, Mr. Speaker, before a debate, and apparently often before Prime Minister's questions—and perhaps other questions—is most unfair and detracts from good debates. If hon. Members are told that they will be called to speak, or have an indication of that, they may go along to the Tea Room, or somewhere else, and have a meal and not stay and listen to the debate.
I am sure you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that it is vital that when hon. Members wish to take part in a debate they should

sit in the Chamber and listen to all points of view. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West would agree that it is intolerable that hon. Members do not listen to opening speeches or subsequent speeches. They go away all day and come here at six o'clock, or eight o'clock, and speak without having the courtesy even to listen to the hon. Members who follow them. They then clear off, having made their speech, perhaps to have a drink in Annie's Bar. Often they are so discourteous that they do not come back to hear the winding-up speeches on important debates.
This is a valid and reasonable point of order. It is an issue which gives concern to all hon. Members, the general public, and the press, which often notes the emptiness of the Chamber. It is scandalous that Members do not sit in the House and listen to other Members when they wish to take part in a debate. That is not in accordance with our constitution or practice. Our practice is that the House is a place in which hon. Members debate and talk to each other, and not at each other.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is a good note for me to rise on. The hon. Gentleman knows that he was not raising a point of order.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I respond to the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot)? When I announced during business questions last week the reasons for taking the Competition Bill today, I said that it was to give the House an opportunity to express its thoughts on the subject of the Bill. I have listened carefully to all that has been said, including the important intervention made on behalf of the minority parties. In view of the advanced hour, it would not be right to press ahead for a Division tonight. I accept the constructive suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman that we should start the debate and that the Government should move the adjournment before 10 o'clock. We shall not proceed to a vote this evening. That would be in the best interests of all Members.

Mr. Foot: I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much for what he has


said, and I hope that the House will proceed on that basis.

Mr. Arthur Lewis (Newham, North-West): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know that everyone likes to try to shut me up, but I shall not be shut up on this occasion.
I agree with many of the views put by my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart), but he made one vital mistake when he said that I had written to you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, I made my request in the House at 4 p.m. I want to make that clear. I do not believe in jiggery-pokery and fiddling. I raised the point on the Floor of the House, but I still did not get called.

Mr. Stoddart: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will co-operate now. The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) had not written to me.

Mr. Stoddart: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. All that I wish to do is to apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West. Clearly, I misunderstood his position.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps we should all apologise to one another.

Mr. Denis Skinner (Bolsover): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have been trying to catch your eye for a considerable time. It is a genuine point of order and a matter on which I need clarification, and it has not been outdistanced by the fact that there has been an amicable arrangement between the two Front Benches.
I should like to know what is the situation facing the minority groups on this side of the House and, if there are any, such groups on the Government side. I am concerned about how much time will be available to the Liberal Party and other parties and to hon. Members such as myself who have a point of view to express.
It has been clear throughout our proceedings today that there has been no co-operation between the Front Benches. Now that there is co-operation between them, where do the rest of us stand? For instance, how long will the Front Bench speakers take in opening the

debate on the Competition Bill? What time will be available at the end?
That is a genuine point of order, and I need an answer in order to be able to take part in, or listen to, the debate.

Mr. Speaker: But the answer does not come from me.

7.32 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. John Nott): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Competition Bill has four main elements. First, it strengthens the power of the Director General of Fair Trading and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to deal with practices that restrict or limit competition in both the public and private sectors.
Secondly, it gives a new power to the Secretary of State to refer nationalised industries and other public bodies to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to investigate their efficiency and costs, the service that they provide to consumers and any possible abuse of monopoly power by those organisations.
Thirdly, the Bill creates a new procedure to enable the Secretary of State to ask the Director General to investigate prices of major public concern. Finally, it abolishes the Price Commission and repeals the associated legislation.
Had our debate commenced at a proper hour I would have taken the opportunity to explain the role of stronger competition policy within the overall framework of the Government's monetary and fiscal policies. However, as the hour is late I am sure that the House would wish me to hear the comments of Labour Members on the Bill. Therefore, in order to give the House the maximum possible amount of time to express views on the Bill, I do not propose to say more at this stage.

Hon. Members: That is disgraceful.

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have just witnessed the trampling of the democratic rights of hon. Members by an outrageous speech from a representative of a Government who seem to care little for the rights of hon. Members duly elected to the House. Even on the Government side there may be some who are not so sycophantic that they do not have criticisms of the Bill. It is a major Bill.


It is a convention of the House that the Front Bench speakers are given special facilities for speaking. They have no other rights or privileges because we are all elected on a basis of equality. The Front Benches are given special rights of access for speaking.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order. That is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Cryer: May I finish the point of order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: There was no point of order for the Chair.

Mr. Cryer: I was coming to the point of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman was taking a long time about it.

Mr. Cryer: The point of order is that there has been a breach of the convention of the House that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. are here to enforce. The unwritten sections of our constitution, as well as provisions in "Erskine May", have been broken because no adequate explanation has been given for this massive Bill. The Minister is abusing his rights.

Mr. Nott: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am perfectly prepared to speak at length on the Bill, if I have the permission of the House to do so, when we have the adjourned debate. The reason I am not prepared to speak at any greater length now is that hon. Members should have an opportunity of speaking on the Bill. With permission, I shall speak again on Second Reading at a future occasion.

Mr. Douglas Jay (Battersea, North): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely the Secretary of State has misunderstood the situation. We have had an assurance from the Leader of the House that a little before 10 o'clock he will move the adjournment of the debate so that it may proceed on a later date.
In that case, there is no reason to think that the time available for today's debate will be curtailed and therefore, on every precedent and principle of parliamentary debate, the Secretary of State, the senior Minister responsible for this major Bill, should open the debate by explaining the

Bill and defending the policy of the Government.
It will not be possible to have a serious and dignified debate unless that is done. As the right hon. Gentleman appears to have acted under a misconception in believing that the whole debate will terminate at 10 o'clock, is it not possible for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the House to appeal to the Secretary of State to make the speech that he must have with him and for which there is adequate time?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is not for the Chair to indicate to a Minister what he is to say or not to say.

Mr. Stoddart: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State was either not here for, or not listening to, what the Leader of the House said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot). It was clear that the Leader of the House had accepted that the debate had been delayed and should therefore proceed in the normal manner except that the vote would be taken not tonight but after further debate on another day.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is nowhere near a point of order for the Chair. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise a point of order, will he please come to the point as quickly as possible?

Mr. Stoddart: I will come quickly to the point of order.

Mr. Clinton Davis (Hackney, Central): Let it go.

Mr. Stoddart: No. I will not be heckled by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench or anywhere else. My point of order is that the form of debate in the House is that the Minister outlines and explains a Bill before we discuss it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has been in the House on many occasions when Ministers have not outlined a Bill in detail.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At this time of the year tempers in the House tend to get frayed, and there are also some misconceptions around.
I do not think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade understood exactly the proposal that I


put, namely, that we should commence the debate this evening but should not proceed to a vote and that we would find extra time at a later date to complete our consideration of the Bill. I suggest, therefore, that, the misconception having been cleared up, my right hon. Friend should proceed with his speech.

7.40 p.m.

Mr. John Smith (Lanarkshire, North): The speech—if that is what it can be called—just given by the Secretary of State for Trade must be the most contemptuous delivered to the House for many decades. Not only has he the responsibility—which any Secretary of State has who is conscious of the responsibility his office lays upon him—to explain to Parliament, the only law-making institution in the country, the contents of legislation put before it; we were told by the Leader of the House only last Thursday that one of the important reasons why the Bill had to be discussed today was that the Government could inform the country fully about it by means of what he called a "full debate" in this House.
The Leader of the House also said that it was important that hon. Members with different views on the Bill should have an opportunity to express them, but today, while there may well be different views on both sides of the House—and I intend to explain fully and in detail the views of the Opposition, because the country is entitled to know them—the only people we will have heard from in the debate will be the Government, through the Secretary of State for Trade, who carries responsibility for the Bill and whose name appears on it.
I do not know what kind of judgment or tactic was in the mind of the Secretary of State in choosing to treat the House in this contemptuous fashion. I do not think it can be the case that he thought that the debate would be curtailed at 10 o'clock, because, like all of us, he listened to the exchanges and heard the Leader of the House say that the Government will not press for a Division at 10 o'clock and therefore the Secretary of State will have opportunity to speak. I hope that the Secretary of State will take the opportunity, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and if the House gives its permission—it may be that it will not do

so—to remedy this very grave discourtesy that has been done to the whole House and, indeed, to the country, and explain the Bill adequately to the House.

Mr. Nott: I have offered and have made it quite clear that, by leave of the House, I am perfectly prepared to make a longer speech. Either the right hon. Gentleman accepts that or he does not. I am in his hands.

Mr. Smith: I must not be the arbiter of the right hon. Gentleman's sense of responsibility. He must be the arbiter of it himself. The Opposition are entitled to complain, as, indeed, are hon. Members on both sides of the House and people in the country at large—and volubly—that the Government do not seem to have either the courage or the sense of principle and dignity to defend their proposals before the House.
I want to get on and deal with the Bill myself. All that we were told by the right hon. Gentleman was that it had four purposes. First, it is the most misleadingly named Bill to have come before the House for a very long time. It is not the Competition Bill; it is the abolition of the Price Commission Bill. If ever there was a case for reference to the Director General for Fair Trading for a misleading trade description, it is this Bill's title. If the right hon. Gentleman is thinking of doing intelligent actions like that, rather than fail to inform the House of the Bill, we shall at least have made some progress.
We are really debating the abolition of the Price Commission. In his very short speech the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that as the final objective of the Bill. But it is the principal purpose of the Bill. During the general election, the question of the Price Commission raised itself from time to time. I recall the celebrated television debate between my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and the right hon. Lady who is now Minister for Consumer Affairs. She was repeatedly asked whether the Tories intended to abolish the Price Commission. She took refuge in the weasel words of the Conservative manifesto that a Conservative Government would review the activities of the Commission.
At no stage did any Conservative spokesman say that the Commission


would be abolished as soon as the party was returned to office. But within a matter of days, in the debate on the Gracious Speech, the Prime Minister announced the abolition of the Price Commission. That must have been either the fastest review of policy to have taken place in modern history or it was the preconceived intention of the Conservative Party—I believe that that is the case—to abolish the Price Commission. I believe that it was the Conservative Party's intention before the election and during the election but that it was concealed from the electorate in case the public would not support the Conservatives. I believe that, as a result, the Conservative Party was able to delude the public into thinking that all that was proposed was a review. [Interruption.] I should be grateful if the Government would pay attention to what the Opposition are saying. It is one thing for the Secretary of State not to explain the Bill to the House; he might at least do the Opposition the courtesy of listening to what they have to say about it.

Mr. Anthony Grant (Harrow, Central): Will not the right hon. Gentleman accept that the word "review" certainly does not mean "maintain in perpetuity"? It means that a thing may be maintained or removed. I am glad that the Price Commission is being removed.

Mr. Smith: The point that I was putting did not concern the mental attitude of the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant). I can quite see that in all probability he was all along in favour of the abolition of the Price Commission. In the Conservative election manifesto it was said that a Conservative Government would review the Price Commission. During the election, the Conservative Party was asked specifically if it would abolish the Price Commission. The answer was equivocation after equivocation. Yet within days of the election the Prime Minister, in her first speech to the House, announced that the Price Commission would be abolished. Any reasonable jury would convict the Government of deluding the public in the matter.

Mr. Michael Neubert (Romford): Mr. Michael Neubert (Romford) rose—

Mr. Smith: I do not feel any obligation to give way to hon. Members on the Government Benches when the Secretary of State would not make points in respect of the Bill. I do not think that he should be rescued by his hon. Friends. But in the interests of fairness and to outline the differences between the two approaches, I will give way.

Mr. Neubert: I am indebted to the right hon. Gentleman. Will he confirm that the prospect of the absorption of the Price Commission into the Monopolies and Mergers Commission had already been anticipated in a Green Paper published by the Labour Government, and therefore is nothing new?

Mr. Smith: That is a different matter. There may well be a case for merging the Price Commission with other bodies, provided that its price control function is maintained. The Labour Party manifesto considered such a possibility, but it was never part of our intention that the price control function should be completely dropped from the legislative apparatus available to the Government. That is precisely what is proposed in clause 1 of the Bill, the most important clause.

Mr. Joan Evans (Aberdare): The House is in a serious difficulty. The Secretary of State's contribution was too short to interrupt him with questions, but what concerns many of us is that there are those in the Price Commission whose contracts are coming up for renewal while Parliament is in recess. This is an important matter. The Price Commission is to go on until the Bill passes through all its stages, but many members of the Price Commission do not know what their future is to be. We thought that that point would be elaborated by the Secretary of State in his opening speech.
We on the Opposition Benches cannot speak with authority on the matter, and so Parliament will be going into recess without knowing what the Government's decision is to be. We have merely had this sign of temper by the Secretary of State because there have been two Ministerial statements today.

Mr. Smith: The question of the staff who have served the Price Commission is extremely important. The only information that we have concerning them is


in the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Bill. I think that there have also been the odd press statements, because the right hon. Gentleman chose to speak at greater length to the press when he presented the Bill than he has done to the House of Commons, which has the responsibility of deciding whether the Bill is to be made law. That, after all, is one of the most important features. I thought that one of the reasons why the Government were pressing ahead with Second Reading was that there would thereby be some clarity about the future of people employed by the Price Commission, but they have been treated as discourteously as the House by the Secretary of State.

Mr. Evans: Clearly, I am concerned about the staff, but I am also concerned about the members of the Commission whose contracts are expiring. If we do not get clarification from the Government, what will the situation be? Is action to be taken during the recess? Is Parliament to be told who is to be appointed to the Commission?

Mr. Smith: I apologise for not being in a position to answer my hon. Friend's penetrating questions. Only one person can do so—the Secretary of State. Since he did not choose to speak at any length, no doubt he will have listened to what my hon. Friend has said and will send him a letter by first post tomorrow answering the important questions that he has raised. I hope that if he does not listen, he will at least read Hansard and answer my hon. Friend's question.
One would have thought that of all the times to abolish the Price Commission this was the most inappropriate. In the terms of the Budget Statement, we are heading for 16 per cent. inflation by October this year. In terms of the statement made to the House by the Secretary of State for Social Services, 17 per cent. inflation is predicted by November. There is hardly an economic commentator in the country who does not believe that we are heading fast for 20 per cent. inflation by the end of the year. We are not in a position in which inflation is dropping to the level at which one might argue from the Government Benches that there was no necessity for the Price Commission. The degree of inflation has been largely induced by the Government own

measures, and particularly by the Budget. We see the authors of increased inflation putting forward a proposal that one control against it should be removed.
The main instrument for the recent increase in prices was the Budget increase in value added tax. That increase was not referred to in very explicit terms in the Conservative Party manifesto, but no doubt the House will remember that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer on 21 April, when taxed with the possibility that VAT would be substantially increased, said:
We have absolutely no intention of doubling VAT—so all the claims made about the price of household goods, shoes, cars, etcetera are utterly false.
If a rise from 8 per cent. to 15 per cent. is not tantamount to doubling the rate of VAT, I believe that the English language has lost its meaning. Much more interesting, my hon. Friends will recollect a very effective press conference conducted during the election campaign by Mrs. Shirley Williams in which she demonstrated the likely increase in the price of household goods as a result of an increase in VAT. That drew from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a comment that is almost unbelievable when we consider the events that have occurred since. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said: 
The figures Shirley Williams gave at this week's Labour Press Conference have no basis in reality … she was assuming that VAT goes up to 15 per cent.
It is high time that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if not the Secretary of State for Trade, came to the House and explained what that statement was meant to mean. Either they did not intend to increase VAT to 15 per cent. or it was another case of deliberately knowing what the plans were and concealing them from the British public during the election.
What will be the effect of the abolition of the Price Commission? Not only will the Commission itself, and the expertise that has been assembled, be dissipated to the four winds; we will lose all the powers of prenotification and the automatic prenotification of price increases by firms with a turnover above a certain amount. The Secretary of State will have no power to freeze prices while they are being investigated and no power to take any action consequent upon an investigation. The ordinary consumer will be left


defenceless against price increases. I fear that Ministers from the Department of Trade speaking at the Dispatch Box will say that they have no statutory responsibility, because that responsibility will have been removed by the Bill. This means that Members of Parliament will be weakened in their capacity to attack the Administration or call them to account for increases in prices.
I believe that the Price Commission is a vital part of the nation's defence against unjustified price increases. The Bill will remove it at one fell swoop.
From time to time, the Price Commission has been criticised by Conservative Members who have demanded proof that it reduced the increase in the cost of living. They produced a number of figures deduced from the actual reductions and freezes that the Price Commission carried out. At the same time, they said that it was holding back investment in British industry on an enormous scale. They cannot have the argument both ways.
An important part of the Price Commission was its deterrent effect in discouraging injustified price increases which companies knew would be subject to rigorous scrutiny. To be fair, the Government do not throw away completely all pretence at controlling prices. If hon. Members look at clause 13 of the Bill, they will find that the Secretary of State has a power, or proposes that Parliament should give him a power, to refer certain price increases not to the Price Commission but to the Director General of Fair Trading. But hon. Members will see that this power is hedged with severe conditions. It should also be remembered that the Secretary of State does not have the Price Commission to do the work for him. There is simply the Director General of Fair Trading.
Before the Secretary of State refers anything, a price or charge must be of major public concern, defined as being "of general economic importance". That is a let-out for Ministers not to refer hosts of unjustified price increases. I predict that Ministers answering at the Dispatch Box, or through written replies, will say that they do not think that any particular price increase is of general economic importance or of major public concern. What is more, it is not an automatic

investigation carried out by the Price Commission. It can be initiated only on the political decision of the Secretary of State.
Even more staggering—I would have put this to the Secretary of State if he had made a proper speech—the right hon. Gentleman appears to have absolutely no powers to act upon an investigation made by the Director General of Fair Trading. Parliament is being asked to give the Secretary of State power to refer to the Director General a price increase of major public importance. He has to report, after which the Secretary of State has no power to take any action whatever, even if the report discloses something of disgraceful proportions. I predict that there will be very few references to the Director General as a result of clause 13.
We are left with a fig leaf of price controls, a mere camouflage that will disguise permission to let prices drift, because companies will be under no restraint. They will not have to justify themselves to the Price Commission. They will not be subject to notification or freezes and the consumer will stand defenceless against inflation largely promoted by the Government's taxation and fiscal policies.
In place of the apparatus of price control on a proper scale the Government advance a new theory—the device of the anti-competitive practice, whereby a so-called anti-competitive practice can be investigated by the Director General of Fair Trading to be followed by a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I have grave doubts about the Government's sincerity in wishing to make a reality of a thorough investigation of the commercial practices of some companies and what they call their anti-competitive practices. Not that there is a lack of such practices. Many hon. Members know about them. They include tie-in procedures, full-line forcing and all the other devices used by dominant producers to create a captive market for themselves.
While the Government set up a new form of investigation, they do not give the proper resources either to the Director General of Fair Trading or to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to carry out their task. Hon. Members will see in the explanatory and financial


memorandum that the extra money is £1¾ million and a reference to some staff increase for the Director General of Fair Trading. If he is to take over responsibility for prices and also anti-competitive practices, one would have thought that the Government would have put forward proposals for refashioning and strengthening the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
If the Director General does not get an undertaking from a company which he has investigated, the only action that the Secretary of State can take is to refer the matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. That is a quasi-judicial body. We know how long its procedures take. It proceeds at a fairly slow pace, takes evidence from all and sundry and sometimes many years elapse before a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is reported to the Secretary of State.
I believe that many firms that wish to brazen it out will refuse to give an undertaking to the Director General, make the Secretary of State take them to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and then dilly-dally—there will be plenty of opportunities—for years before the Monopolies and Mergers Commission reports. It may be that we reach the end of this Parliament before the Monopolies and Mergers Commission has reported to the Secretary of State about any single reference made to it under the terms of this legislation. That does not seem a mighty engine for tackling anti-competitive practices.
There is a fundamental mistake of philosophy in the Government's approach. One cannot run an anti-competitive policy and neglect the prices element of that policy completely. One must fight anticompetitive practices and unjustified prices at the same time. They are both often intricately connected.
One further part of the Bill to which I hope the House will pay attention both on Second Reading and in Committee is clause 11 that was advertised by the Secretary of State in his press statement as an important added safeguard for the public in terms of nationalised industries. The right hon. Gentleman takes power to refer to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission certain bodies in relation to their efficiency, the service provided by them and the possible abuse of a monopoly position. It may be that there is a

case for referring some of these public bodies to it. But if there is a case for that, why is the power restricted to nationalised industries and certain public bodies such as transport and water undertakings? There is one rule for the publicly owned industries and another rule for those who finance the Conservative Party. I give notice to the Secretary of State that if this power is to remain in the Bill the Opposition will seek to widen its scope to ensure that the Monopolies Commission has power to make wider investigations.
I suspect that the intention behind clause 11 is not to strengthen the protection of the consumer but to indulge the animus which the Government have against the public sector. They will seek to make constant references to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission under clause 11 so that they can seek to persuade the public that the abuse of economic power exists only in the public sector, whereas we all know that there are many rampant abuses in the private sector.
What in essence the Bill adds up to is a blatant abandonment of the apparatus of price control which has been built up over the past few years. A Government who were genuine about controlling prices would retain the Price Commission and, what is more, seek to strengthen its powers, as the Labour Party proposed during the election campaign. There may be a case for adapting the institutions and merging the Price Commission and some of the other bodies, including the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and the Office of Fair Trading. But a Government who were genuine would design a vehicle for effective action against anti-competitive practices and price increases which were unjustified. What there is not a case for is the throwing away of effective powers against prices and the substitution for it of a half-hearted, ineffective and half-baked policy on competition.

The Minister of State, Department of Trade (Mr. Cecil Parkinson): What nonsense.

Mr. Smith: I really do not think that it lies with the Minister of State to make seated interventions. Colleagues of the Secretary of State would be well advised to keep quiet during a speech by a member of the Opposition since the right hon. Gentleman did not have


the courtesy to expose himself to any kind of criticism, whether seated or standing.
If this Bill passes into law, we shall see the passing of a milestone in the Government's rapid retreat from the fight against inflation. As prices soar in the unchecked scandal which their policies promote, so will the justified resentment of the public increase to a stage at which they will speedily sweep this Government from office.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Grant (Harrow, Central): I want, first, to commend the approach of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to this debate. After the ludicrous waste of time to which we were subjected by the Opposition earlier this afternoon, my right hon. Friend's desire to enable as many right hon. and hon. Members as possible to take part in the debate by truncating his remarks was highly commendable. The right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) knows that the usual practice is for a Minister to make a long-winded speech which attracts the attention of the press and then to leave the Chamber. On this occasion my right hon. Friend has not done that. His intention is to allow right hon. and hon. Members to speak, and he will speak in reply. I am certain that if he had made a long speech we should have heard endless noise from Opposition Members complaining that he was speaking at too great a length and denying the rights of Back Benchers, with the result that we should have had an early-day motion tabled.

Mr. Ioan Evans: The hon. Gentleman is making an unfair attack on the Opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) raised a question on the business motion, and his argument was so telling that the Leader of the House accepted his amendment. That justified completely my hon. Friend's asking for more time for the Northern Ireland debate.
We have to bear in mind that the Second Reading debate on this Bill could have started at half-past three o'clock. That did not happen because there were two Government statements. It is not

in the hands of the Opposition to determine whether the Government make statements. That is the responsibility of the Government. It is very unfair of the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) to criticise the Opposition.
Finally, the Minister—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) intends to try to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair, he is not proceeding very favourably.

Mr. Grant: Obviously it was unwise of me to be so generous as to give way to the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans). I have no intention of engaging in a repeat performance by rehearsing all the arguments that we heard earlier about Northern Ireland. All I say is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State showed that he was conscious of the time factor in this debate, and I applaud him for it.
For my part, throughout the election campaign I said repeatedly in public that I wanted the Price Commission to be abolished. As a result, I looked a little askance at the remarks about "a review". Nevertheless, I accepted that that was perhaps the more moderate approach, although it was one which I did not accept. When I saw that the Gracious Speech did not refer directly to the abolition of the Price Commission, again I wondered what was happening. But now I am delighted that my right hon. Friend has taken this course because I believe it to be right. I have advocated it for a long time.
It must be said that one cannot interpret the word "review", no matter how one strains the language, as meaning the maintenance of something in perpetuity. A review means exactly what it says.
I am sure that the members of the Price Commission are worthy, honourable and well-meaning men. They desire to do their best for the country. They pay their taxes and they do not beat their wives. All in all, they are worthy bureaucrats. However, at best their activities have been futile. At worst, they have been positively mischievous.
It is perfectly obvious that the Commission failed to contain the price explosion and the inflation that we saw under the previous Government. Probably


the biggest praise that can be given to the Price Commission is that perhaps it succeeded in containing one-thousandth part of the considerable increase in prices which took place under the previous Government.
It is also fair to say that virtually no other country in the industrial world has anything like a price commission, and their records on inflation have been far better than our own under the previous Government. So I do not believe that the Price Commission can claim any credit for containing prices.
After all, prices are only the thermometer of inflation. It is impossible to reduce the temperature of a patient by employing a man in a bowler hat to force down the mercury in the thermometer. That is not the way to approach matters. In that sense, the poor, worthy Price Commission was just like the man in the bowler hat trying to push down the mercury in the thermometer.
Even more damaging is the way that its absurd and ludicrous reports meddle with industry.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the point about the futility of the Price Commission, which, in his view, does not have a measurable effect on the retail price index, may I ask whether he takes the view that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and the Director General of Fair Trading are to be similarly regarded as futile, and that they will have no appreciable effect on the retail price index following the passage of the Bill?

Mr. Grant: The Bill will create exactly the sort of climate necessary to protect the consumer—something that has been forgotten by Opposition Members—namely, competition in industry.
I give an example of meddling in the alarm system industry that affected a small company. I declare an interest, as I am a director of that company. The Minister at the time—I wonder whether he—or she—takes decisions when he is in the bath wondering what to do with the Price Commission—proposed an inquiry because there had been four complaints from Members of Parliament and eight from the general public. That, in an industry in which there are 350,000 alarm

system installations, gives a measure of the importance of the issue.
The Price Commission selected 34 firms as subjects for the inquiry, including my company. It produced a form with 29 pages of foolscap packed with questions. We examined the form at great length and came to the conclusion that at least half the questions were not applicable to our industry. We informed the Price Commission, which replied courteously and sent someone to help us. The result was that two directors of my company, one executive and two well-paid and very nice officials of the Price Commission spent a total of 18 hours poring over the form. They came to the conclusion that it was not the appropriate one.
The officials went away saying that they would do better. They sent a different form, which consisted of 59 pages of closely typed foolscap, with five annexes. We looked at that form—with more executive time wasted—and came to the conclusion that some of the questions did not apply. Before we were able to reply to the Price Commission it produced its report, so the forms were not relevant at all. The amount of executive and bureaucratic time wasted that could have been put to more productive activity was disgraceful.
The report itself, so far as it was accurate, was already known to the industry, and, so far as it was not known, it was wholly inaccurate. It was a monumental waste of public-spirited, publicly paid people, together with private industry, on a ludicrous activity. That has been multiplied throughout the country in all types of industry, and I am glad that the Price Commission is to be abolished.
The Government's approach has brought a welcome breath of freedom to industry. The control of monopoly and the maintenance of fair trading is the other side of the coin of free enterprise. Smaller firms have always been subject to the chill wind of competition. Larger firms must realise that they have also to be exposed to the bracing air of competition.
I am pleased that the Government have decided to include the nationalised industries in this exercise. Under the previous Government the prices of nationalised industries rose faster than those in


the private sector. I hope that the Secretary of State will heed my point that the Bill should be strong enough for the activities of nationalised industries, in what I describe as "fringe activities", to be investigated. There has been far too much meddling and pursuing of fringe activities by nationalised industry over the years.
It is not the business of British Railways to run hotels. That could be done better by others. It is not the business of British Airways to set up shops in high streets to sell tickets. It is not the business of the electricity business to engage in the alarm system industry without having to maintain the standards that have to be maintained by the private sector. It is impossible to discover the financial basis—with taxpayers' money—on which it is working. It is in the consumers' interests that such outside activities should be subject to the same disciplines as the private sector, and I hope that they will be trapped by clauses 2 and 11.
I do not expect an answer tonight on my next point, but perhaps it will be answered when the Minister winds up the debate. Some industries, particularly international shipping, are exempted from the Restrictive Trade Practices Order 1976. That industry is concerned about the Bill and wants some assurance that international shipping activities will be specifically exempted. Without such an assurance its activities will be subject to the new controls. The right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North, who had responsibility for shipping, will understand the implications of conference agreements, and so on. This is a matter of international trade, and I hope that the Minister can satisfy this industry, on which so much of our trade depends.
This is an excellent Bill which will shake up complacent and monopolistically minded private industry. It will help the consumer and shake up the nationalised industries. I hope that the 450 worthy civil servants involved will find other employment. If I have any criticism, it is that they will still be employed in the public service, when they should be employed in productive service. The Bill will command the support of the House and, I believe, of the country.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. Andy McMahon: It is the custom in a maiden speech to pay tribute to one's predecessor. I do so without hesitation. Mr. Harry Selby, who represented Govan in the previous Parliament, did an excellent job. I am sure that my return to represent Govan reflects the work that Harry did over the last five or six years.
Today has been a day of doom and misery for Govan. I was not overwhelmed by what I heard today, but I was concerned and a little afraid about the nauseating class character of the policies announced by the Government. In particular, as a boilermaker and someone who has been a victim of the so-called winding down of shipbuilding on Clyde-side, I must say that no Tory Member can tell me that I should find a job elsewhere. I wonder how many Government supporters can tell me how one finds a job in an area such as Govan where 80 per cent. of a ship is built outside the shipyard and the costs for shipbuilding fall on the whole community.
I laugh when I hear about selling parts of shipbuilding back into private hands—the hands of those who have claimed God's gift to look after the industry. I can tell the House from personal experience what happens when a shipyard worker is subjected to a so-called "family" shipyard. There was a slight recession in Govan in 1946. A ship was lying on the stocks red with rust and the shipyard workers' only consolation was to put their tools in a pawnshop.
After a period, one of the family saw a carpenter in the yard opening his toolbox. Looking in, he said "Chippie, your tools are very rusty." Back came the logical reply "Yes, but you should have seen my bloody frying pan."
That is a measure of the crime that can be committed by the policies of this Government. If, after six short weeks, they are prepared to throw down the gauntlet of face-to-face confrontation with the trade union and labour movement, I advise them to speak to the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) who as Prime Minister tried it with UCS in 1971. The tactics may be different, but the result will be the same.
We are prepared to fight for our jobs. Already we have taken steps to unite the


trade union and labour movement. One cannot discard a man's skilled job in the same way as one can throw away a cigarette packet. Men depend upon their jobs. The Government must not demoralise people.
The class conscious character of the Government was revealed today when the announcement was made about the aerospace industry. They were all for that industry but nothing was said to help shipbuilding because there is no profit to be made at present in shipbuilding. It is worth remembering that we spent £14 million a day in the last war. That was on a struggle for democracy and for decency. Today's Government should try to provide financial support for our basic industries. We have invested £35 million in Govan. It was a good investment for Govan and for the western central belt of Scotland.
If the Government fail to recognise the crucial consequences of their action, I urge them to take heed of the warning from Govan. God help the Government if they try to close the Govan, or any other, shipyard in Scotland.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Dorrell: It is ironic that I, a new Member, should speak immediately after the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. McMahon). We were all impressed by his passion and fluency. All who heard that speech will agree that the electors of Govan have found themselves an able and eloquent spokesman. I am sure that he will be an effective representative in the House of their interests.
I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for curtailing his speech so that some of his hon. Friends, who may be less convinced than he is of all the details in the Bill, can argue other important matters.
The right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) said that the Bill was named wrongly. He thought it should be called "The Abolition of the Price Commission Bill ". He will be aware that Conservative Members like to think positively. Our prices policy is directed at using the competitive forces of the market to keep prices down. In the long run that is the only effective way

of controlling prices. That is why we regard the abolition of the Price Commission and the strengthening of competition as the most effective steps towards keeping prices under control. That solution is more widely understood outside the House than in certain parts of it.
I welcome the Government's decision to abolish the Commission without further ado. However, I express my support in a critical manner because I do not think that the Government must never control prices. I hope that I am enough of a realist to know that if I am involved in politics for any length of time the chances are that at some time in my career I shall vote for price control. I shall not, therefore, lay down too many hostages to fortune.
In both my speeches in the Chamber I have argued that the Government have a role in deciding the cost and price levels in the economy. I am certain that one cannot have effective price controls which produce the goods without cost controls. Prices, largely, are governed by costs. Without effective cost control it is impossible to have effective price control.
My charge, therefore, against the Price Commission as it was constituted by the Labour Government is not that it is wrong to say that the Government have no role in these matters but that the function and constitution of the existing Price Commission were not properly thought out. One has only to read the Price Commission Act 1977 to find there a garbled collection of worthy sentiments but no real policy or guiding light giving the Price Commission a job that it is possible for it to do. One can read the Act in an effort to ascertain the purpose of the Price Commission governed by it but be none the wiser at the end.
The ostensible function, laid down, I believe, in section 2 of the Act, is that the Price Commission is supposed to be responsible for directly controlling prices. As I have said, I cannot see how that is possible if one does not at the same time control costs. Moreover, the debates at the time when the Act was introduced reveal that that agument found a lot of sympathy with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), for the whole purpose of his introduction of the Act was to do away with the Price Code, the effective teeth of the


original Price Commission, and to introduce what was called a more flexible approach to prices.
The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook said that the Price Commission did not exist or would not exist to hold down prices. That was not supposed to be its primary purpose. One is then left with the question which I have already posed; what on earth was its primary purpose? The right hon. Gentleman, who introduced the measure and piloted it through the House, seemed, at any rate on the surface, to be uncertain about the real purpose of the Price Commission which he was in process of creating.
Some of the statements made since, especially during the past four or five months, have revealed the true purpose of the Price Commission Act. The right hon. Gentleman wanted to introduce a facade of price control as something which, while actually having no teeth, would be good for trade union leadership consumption and good for the constituency Labour parties. It was something put about merely to make it appear that the Labour Government were continuing to control prices, yet what I call the teeth which the right hon. Gentleman gave to the Price Commission to control prices had little or no reality.
The ultimate irony of that policy, of course, is that the right hon. Gentleman devoted a lot of time to introducing a Price Commission which was supposed to impress the electorate and bring the trade union movement behind the Labour Government, yet we are now sitting on these Benches precisely because the trade unions were wholly unimpressed and the only people impressed were his hon. Friends behind him at that time.
When the matter was researched by an opinion poll 12 month ago, 66 per cent. of the electorate, when asked whether they knew whether the Price Commission still existed, replied "No". If it was a cosmetic measure designed to convince people that prices were being held down, its ultimate condemnation is that two-thirds of the electorate did not even know that it existed. Moreover, a further 15 per cent., although realising that the Price Commission existed, realised also that it was ineffective.
Thus, 80 per cent. of the electorate in all were totally unconvinced by the cosmetic nature of the Price Commission introduced by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, and the reason why I am pleased to see its departure is that at least we are now returning to honesty. At least, we accept that one cannot control prices if one does not at the same time control costs. We are not at present embarking on a policy of controlling costs, any more than the Labour Government controlled costs. We are not doing that. We must therefore come clean with the electorate.

Mr. John Townend: How is it posisble for the Government to control costs?

Mr. Dorrell: It has been shown to be perfectly possible in the short term to control costs. It has been done through statutory wages policies many times in the past. It is not a policy which I believe can work in the long term, but it is something which, in certain circumstances, we have to accept as a fact of life. Governments of both parties have introduced it, and in all probability they will do so again.
I turn to a second function of the Price Commission that was made clear in the 1977 Act. It is one that the Government and Conservative Members fully support and are vesting in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. We are introducing the function to the Commission and strengthening it as well. I refer to the function of the Price Commission in the promotion of competition policy.
As I have already said, our policy during the next few years will be to rely on the competitive forces of companies and on companies competing one with another to keep prices under control. That is a feature that was written into the 1977 Act. The Green Paper that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook produced to Parliament last March contemplated the possibility of such powers being vested in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. That is precisely what we are suggesting in the Bill, and that is what the majority of the Bill is devoted to doing.
It is true that the Green Paper contemplated a long list of practices that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission should be on the lookout for and


should try to stamp on when they occurred. The Government take a much more pragmatic approach. They believe that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission should be on the lookout for anything that is anti-competitive. It is for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, as the expert on competitive policy, to determine what is anti-competitive and what is not. That approach seems much more likely to catch any serious breach of competitive practice than a long list of practices of which the Government of the day may not approve.

Mr. John Fraser: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission does not decide what it investigates? That is a matter that rests with the Director General of Fair Trading. There is a difference between the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and the Price Commission. The Price Commission could pick up a reference from the notification of a price increase. A further difference is that the Price Commission was generally able to report within three months. In practice, it is rare for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to get through its business within three years.

Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that under the proposals in the Bill the Director General of Fair Trading will be responsible for referring cases to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Surely that is a splitting of the function of the Price Commission. The Price Commission could initiate its own inquiries, and we are now saying that there should be an initial inquiry for precisely the reason that the hon. Gentleman advanced in the second part of his intervention, namely, to establish whether there is a prima facie case of anti-competitive practice. That task will be performed by an independent organisation. The Price Commission was independent, and the Director General of Fair Trading represents an independent organisation. He will perform the same function as the Price Commission.
The proper organisation to investigate real anti-competitive practices is the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. That is where the expertise lies, and that is where the proper procedures are established for arriving at the truth. It is a

long process. One of the greatest complaints about the Price Commission was that its emphasis on speed meant that some of its decisions were open to criticism. We are saying that there should be an initial examination to establish whether there is a prima facie case of anticompetitive practice. Once that initial sieving process has been completed, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission should be concerned with a proper and thorough investigation of the anti-competitive practices. I hope and believe that that is the reason for the split of function. It is a split which is eminently justifiable and reasonable.
The contents of clause 11 relate to efficiency audits for nationalised industries. It is a concept that I support and welcome as an inclusion in the Bill. It is the State that is obviously ultimately interested in the economic success of the nation. The State has a legitimate role in doing all that it can to ensure a proper degree of industrial efficiency. I am concerned about the limited nature of the power that my right hon. Friend has placed in the Bill, or the power that he is hoping to take, to refer nationalised industries to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for efficiency audits. If that power is justifiable for the nationalised industries, surely it is justifiable to exactly the same extent for large private sector companies on which our national wellbeing rests.
We must accept that large parts of British industry are inefficient. That is why our standard of living is below that of the rest of Western Europe. It is not clear to me why the British Gas Corporation, or the postal or telephone side of the Post Office, should be subject to an efficiency audit, but not Plessey or GEC. I ask how this clause will apply to companies such as British Airways and British Aerospace, which the Government rightly—I am 100 per cent. behind them—want to float off into the private sector. How will this power under clause 11 apply to those companies?
There is an old argument that outsiders can never know as much as insiders about the running of a company. I do not think that is a sufficient answer. First, if it applies to the private sector, exactly the same objection is open to the efficiency audit of the public sector. Secondly, there is no need for the Monopolies and


Mergers Commission or its personnel to undertake those efficiency audits themselves. There are good management consultancies which have just as much expertise, in many cases, in the running of specific industries as the managers of those industries. In some cases the international consultancies presumably are better at the job than the managements, otherwise they would not be able to earn their living as consultants. I hope that the Government will look again at the limitation of that efficiency audit power to the public sector. Our future as a country relies on all our big industries.

Mr. Nott: My hon. Friend will appreciate that where there is a statutory monopoly in the private sector it will find its way, through the existing processes under the Fair Trading Act, into the process of investigation, as things now stand. We seek to ensure that where a statutory monopoly in the public sector exists there is a process to enable the same thing to happen. My hon. Friend may not have quite taken that point on board. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission will be undertaking its inquiries in six months. It will be a much shorter inquiry than in the past.

Mr. Dorrell: The limitation of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's investigations is welcome. That answers the criticisms made by Opposition Front Bench Members. I take the point that my right hon. Friend makes about the existing powers under the monopolies legislation. I rephrase my hope, namely, that he will look at the treatment of the public and private sectors and ensure that they are treated on equal terms.
Our future as a country relies on the success of all our industries. The nation has just as much at stake in every big productive enterprise, whether it is owned by the public or the private sector.

8.38 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: The hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) made a most interesting, well informed and frank speech from the Conservative Benches. He has a much more realistic understanding of the world of business and buying and selling than have the occupants of the Government Front Bench or some of his colleagues who have had the misfortune

to be locked up for a longer period than himself in this Palace and who have not been exposed to the bracing experience of the world outside. I hope that what was said by a Government supporter has penetrated the comprehension of the Government Front Bench to a greater degree than the Secretary of State showed a minute ago, when, in his intervention to the hon. Gentleman's speech, he did less than justice to the queries that were raised.
I agree heartily with the hon. Gentleman—my party has said this over and over again for 50 years—that big business requires watchful investigation by the State just as much as do public corporations. In my view, it is legalistic nonsense for the Secretary of State to take the point, as he tried to do just now, that this sort of thing should come into play only when, in the private sector, there is a statutory monopoly. It is not statutes that count in business; it is the degree of market dominance.
Speaking from experience of auditing the accounts one week of a nationalised body and the next week, so to speak, of some large concern, I found very little to choose between the degree of inefficiency and waste in each type of corporation. It is where a large business has acquired the sort of market dominance that enables it to lie back on its laurels and indulge in just the same practices as those of nationalised corporations that there should be much greater powers of investigation.
I very much regret that in the Bill—as far as I understand it, without having had the benefit of any interpretation—there are no provisions to deal with a position of sheer market dominance of a company if it does not happen to be caught by the legalistic definitions in the Bill. I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State will have something to say about large corporations which have, in practice, a dominance over the market, even though they may not be caught by the wording of the Bill.
In another of his points the hon. Member for Loughborough was on to something even more significant. He was asking his Government what they intend to do about prices when the moment comes—as it surely will; it always has in the past—that they have to control pay,


either by a freeze or by another of the succession of wage controls.

Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman slightly misrepresented the point that I was making. I was not asking my Government what they would do in the event of controlling pay. That is a purely hypothetical question. The Government, completely with my support, are not controlling pay or costs; therefore it is entirely unrealistic even to pretend that the Government will control prices.

Mr. Wainwright: I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has even further elucidated his point of view. I still find it very interesting and would like to return to it.
If I may first revert, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the ambience of this unfortunate debate for a moment, by common consent, both inside and outside this House, it is surely one of the main duties of the Commons to enlighten and inform the public about the policy of the Government of the day in a situation in which the Government can be fully criticised and made to clarify their intentions. I submit that some press conference, organised by a Government Department and addressed, without critics being present, by the Secretary of State, who announces that he is introducing a Bill—which is all that the public has had so far—is no substitute at all for the enlightenment of the public through the proper procedures of this House, when a Minister has to suffer interruption, when there are requests for clarification, and speeches from the Opposition Benches and the Conservative Benches.
I find it quite astonishing that the Secretary of State—who usually has a very keen appreciation of the feelings of the House—should have behaved in this extraordinary manner. I can only attribute it not to his being unnerved—he is a man of very strong nerve—by the extraordinary task that he has set himself of selling off a very small minority of shares in a public corporation with a very dubious record, but simply to his embarrassment at introducing a Bill that is wholly at variance with the economic climate that his Government have helped to induce.
I am now really repeating—perhaps with much less skill—the sort of Conservative oratory that we had when the

Conservative Party was in opposition. What is the use of introducing Bills when they run completely contrary to the economic climate of the time? It is no use the Monopolies Commission—even if it works rather faster than in the past—calling for competition and telling the big boys that they must move up and make way for competitors if the economic climate prevents those competitors from coming forward.
I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us, if the House permits him to make his real speech, exactly how he supposes that when the Bank is requiring 17 per cent., when public demand is being ruthlessly depressed by a series of depressing inflationary measures, and when world trade is going through the bottom and we persist in administering our own currency in such a way that our goods are very highly priced in the depressed markets of the world, eager beavers will come forward and say that they will take on some of the giants and act as competitive gadflies. I do not see this happening in the present economic climate, except in the form of action by people whose bravery borders on commercial recklessness. That must be at the root of the Secretary of State's obvious embarrassment in not wanting to advertise the Bill.
We cannot wholly exempt the previous Government from the situation that they now deplore. They had the opportunity to introduce legislation to merge at least two of these bodies. Former Labour Members declared themselves repeatedly in favour of these bodies being merged. Indeed, I understood that the previous Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection was in favour of all three bodies being brought—I quote his words—"under one roof".
I ask the Secretary of State when he comes to explain his measure, if the House gives him leave, why only two of the bodies are merged under the Bill and why the Office of Fair Trading apparently retains a wholly separate existence. The Secretary of State has to justify taking a rather less radical stance than the previous Government who were willing to consider bringing all three bodies under one roof.
To avoid any accusation that my approach is entirely sour, I commend the


Government for adopting a broad definition of anti-competitive policies rather than following the unhappy example of several other major trading nations in legalistically spelling out every conceivable offence against competition. I am glad that the Government have, so far, been robust—I hope they will be equally robust in Committee, if the Bill gets to Committee stage—in rejecting the request by those bodies which speak essentially for those in possession of industry, who, like the CBI, wanted those practices that would be caught under the Bill spelt out in more detail. It is very wise of the Government not to listen too closely or obediently to those big organisations that essentially represent the established parts of industry and that do not speak for the up and coming people who can be relied upon to provide some competition, if they are ever given the chance to get off the ground.
The capacity of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission was raised today. It is reassuring to hear that its processes will be speeded up and that we shall have no more of the "three year" nonsense. I hope that the Secretary of State will also tell us that he will not repeat the previous Government's fiasco by referring nuts and bolts to the Commission, whose investigations had to be abandoned after three years because the Commission said that it could not discover what a screw really was. I hope that that sort of thing is behind us, but we want to know how it will be done. It is not sufficient to take the Secretary of State's word that, in some extraordinary way, he will transfer to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission that spirit of entrepreneurism, the get-up-and-go, which the Government hope to pass on to the rest of the country.
We need some reassurance that this will not be a cut-price operation by the Government. The proud explanation in the memorandum to the Bill that nearly £7 million will be saved, compared with the operation of the Price Commission, gives me no joy whatever. I should like to believe that the new body would not only have a very competent staff but would be able to employ the best professional brains to carry out its investigations and to make sure that it enjoys the fear and genuine awe and respect of the business community. I am not sure that

that can be done on the slender resources that the Government are apparently setting aside.
The Government must understand that in resisting the Monopolies and Mergers Commission business will not proceed on a cut-price basis. Business will go to the best and most acute international professionals, who will fight these public organisations in these matters. It will be most unfortunate if the Government take on business with one arm tied behind their back through an undue attention to a false economy.
My right hon. and hon. Friends and on the Liberal Bench are quite prepared to let the Bill go to Committee so that there can be further discussion, but if it is to have our support on Third Reading we shall need a great many more explanations and a good deal more reassurance.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. Michael Neubert: I hope that I am right in seeing the Bill as the prologue to act 1, with the rest of the play to follow after the interval. Excellent though it is, so far as it goes, and commendable though it is for the Government to have brought it in and for it to have reached Second Reading within three months of the new Administration taking office, it can be only the first part of a new competition policy. It can administer a short sharp shock to the economic system, but it cannot be a substitute for a sustained and vigorous new regime of commercial and industrial fitness.
There is much to welcome in the Bill, but I wonder whether it is not too late in some respects. We have unemployment now in seven figures and rising, inflation in double figures and rising, the visible trade deficit into ten figures, trade union leaders dogged by dogma and assorted historical recollections, punch drunk management reeling from one industrial confrontation to another and productivity so bad that motor car workers on the Continent with the same equipment and the same power to their elbows can produce twice as much as their British counterparts.
In those circumstances, I wonder whether it is not too late to administer the shock to the system, to open up the British economy to the bracing winds


of greater freedom and of fierce competition. I wonder whether we are not seeking to prescribe a cold shower for a patient suffering from pneumonia.
I am sure that the Bill will have results. It will lead either to rapid improvement or to relapse. It is certainly our last chance of breaking into the kind of prosperity enjoyed by our fellow members of the Western industrialised world.
The centrepiece of the Bill is the abolition of the Price Commission. I shall weep no tears at the funeral. Nor do I think that the throng of mourners will be very great. Manifestly the Price Commission, whatever its intentions, has not achieved any significant lessening in the rate of inflation. Therefore, even those who support it have little confidence in it.
During its existence prices more than doubled. Therefore, any pretention that it might have of being able significantly to reduce them is belied by that cold sombre fact. In some ways it restricted prices, but almost always at the expense of profits. If costs are to be allowed, the only margin left is the profit. If that is held back, that is done only at the expense, first, of investment and then, in turn, of jobs. That is why it is possible, despite what the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) said, to condemn it for being both ineffective and damaging—the former in some cases and the latter in others.
I have seen no legitimacy in the existence of the Price Commission since the abolition of the pay board. They were linked like Siamese twins, and it was against the laws of nature that one should exist without the other. It also defied the laws of logic that if control of prices was sought the pay board should be abolished, thereby abolishing control over the major price factor—the cost of labour.
It is not within the power of Parliament, or even of the Government, to control the economy in that way, certainly not in our representative parliamentary democracy. If Governments intervene in the economy they can do so successfully only if they are able to manipulate every factor in that economy. That would require a self-sufficient dictatorship. The only notable experiment in controlling inflation by Government

action by indexation and by control of as many factors within the country's economy as possible is Brazil. That country has an entirely different system of Government from that of Britain.
In our system, Government interference with the workings of a market economy has the same calamitous effect as a weekend driver interfering with the engine of a highly tuned racing car. With each subsequent adjustment another distortion is created. In the end the car does not go at all. In this country we have nearly reached that point.
I welcome the abolition of the Price Commission. It will confer much greater freedom on British industry and, above all, it will relieve industry and commerce of the burden of administration in meeting the needs of the Price Commission investigations. I should like to see more Government measures brought forward, in order to be convinced that they, unlike previous Governments, are thoroughly persuaded of the virtues of real competition. Although in their more inspired moments the previous Government advocated competition as a friend of the consumer and were prepared to encourage it on occasions, when it came to the crunch their nerve failed at least three times. First, when Tate and Lyle sought to take over Manbre and Garton, the two cane sugar refiners in this country, the bringing, together of those two companies created a 100 per cent. dominance in that market and a 50 per cent. dominance in the markets for starch and glucose. However, the Government decided to make no reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission because they felt that the overriding interest was that of jobs.
On another occasion the Price Commission intervened in the pricing of bread and Spillers found that it could not go on. The Government were prepared to allow the remaining two major bread manufacturers, Associated British Foods and Ranks Hovis McDougall, to merge with a substantial share of the market. Prior to that action the three companies dominated 60 per cent. of the bread-baking market and 80 per cent. of the flour market. The merger was allowed, on the undertaking that jobs would be saved and that, of the 8,000 workers who were made redundant, at least 2,000 would be taken on by the two companies.
More recently, in the autumn of last year, Allied Breweries was allowed to take over J. Lyons, again, in the Government's reckoning, in order to safeguard jobs. Therefore, on all three occasions, when it came to the crunch, the overriding consideration of the previous Government was that of jobs and not the consumer interest in the immediate sense of market dominance.
I hope that we shall recognise that if there is an over-concentration of industry in this country, that if we have had over the past years a spate of conglomerates and over-large concerns, it has often been because successive Governments have encouraged that coming together. I hope that the new Government, committed as they are to the prosperity of small businesses, will realise that one of the implications of that policy is not to respect large size for its own sake, and that they will see the merits of a greater diversification in our markets, which have a long way to go before they match the diversification of other major, prosperous, competitor countries.

Mr. John Fraser: The hon. Gentleman referred to some very difficult cases—Tate and Lyle, Allied Breweries and the baking industry. Can he say whether a Conservative Government would have come to any different decisions about saving jobs?

Mr. Neubert: I do not deny that those were three critical issues for the previous Government. Nor do I claim that a Conservative Government would have come to a different conclusion. But it was significant that on none of those three occasions did the Government choose to refer the issues, which were very important and of undoubted public interest, to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I hope that if, by the mechanisms proposed in the Bill, we are creating a more effective and faster mechanism within the Commission, it will also deal with matters of public interest other than the competition references envisaged in the Bill.
The next feature of the Bill that attracts me is the opportunity to investigate practices within the nationalised industries. For too long these public sector monopolies have been above the laws of supply and demand, in many cases above the

normal laws of fair competition, and certainly not accountable, except in the ultimate sense, to the people who are said to own them.
I concede that the management of those industries is charged with the responsibility of seeing that from day to day they are run in the public interest. But we, as Members of Parliament, have little opportunity to scrutinise the internal practices of those industries. The Director General of Fair Trading, under the terms of the Bill, will now have that opportunity if he thinks it appropriate.

Mr. Cryer: Will the hon. Gentleman accept, however, that, unlike the private sector, the public sector has consumer councils which cover most of the major consumer public enterprises? All those councils have on them representatives of the Conservative Party, who would presumably, because of their philosophical attitude, be only too eager to expose the flaws, discrepancies and perhaps exploitation of the consumer, if it takes place. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman must accept that the public sector is subject to more scrutiny than the private sector.

Mr. Neubert: I am not convinced of the effectiveness of consumer councils in safeguarding the consumer interest. I can give an illustration of my reasons for that lack of confidence. It is one of my concerns about the Bill that, although we are promised the opportunity of investigations in the nationalised industries, the Government retain the right to hold sacrosanct any cash limits, any financial targets, which they may set for a nationalised industry. That in turn will have an obvious repercussion on the public interest and the consumer interest, particularly in terms of price.
My illustration is the British Gas Corporation, which not only was required to put up its prices on 1 April 1977, against its own wishes, in order to reduce the then Labour Government's borrowing requirements, but more recently has had to respond to the target of a 6½ per cent. return after tax and depreciation in the current financial year. That has had the effect of the Corporation's having to bring forward to April this year a price increase that it might otherwise have introduced in October this year. That is pre-empting the right of the consumer council in the gas industry to have any say about what


should be done, and it is one reason for my not having too much confidence in consumer councils' effectiveness in dealing with public monopolies.
The anti-competitive practices that are to be identified and investigated as a result of the Bill are in the main those which have been revealed by past Monopolies and Mergers Commission reports. It is clearly a good thing that they should be examined, although I think that they will prove not to be of such significance as, say, market dominance and the question of public monopolies.
I reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) concerning the fringe activities undertaken by public monopolies under the name of nationalised industries. That point is given added importance by the recent exciting announcements by the Government that the public will be allowed to participate in those public monopolies.
It is not right that the public should be allowed to participate in the profits that accrue to public sector monopolies that are engaged in activities that are properly the concern of free enterprise. There would otherwise be unfair competition at the fringe of public monopolies. My hon. Friend mentioned British Airways. I wish to use that illustration also, and I declare an interest as a travel consultant. British Airways have travel shops in premium high street sites. They also operate holidays through their tour-operating companies.

Mr. Cook: Why not?

Mr. Neubert: That is the difficult dilemma which the Government must decide. How far should a public monopoly go in engaging in those activities? I will make my point clearer. The gas and electricity industries are allowed to sell their appliances in their high street shops. British Rail runs hotels successfully. That is not integral to the operation of a major transport system, but only incidental to it. British Rail also operates engineering workshops. The Post Office also engages in activities that are on the fringe of free enterprise.

Mr. Cook: I find it difficult to become emotionally committed to the fact that British Rail runs hotels. I have no particular desire to insist that Gleneagles

hotel should remain in the public sector. I cannot afford to eat there, and nor can my constituents.
I find the hon. Gentleman's point and that of his hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) at variance with their general theme. It is exactly in those activities to which they have referred that the State monopolies are entering into competition with the private sector. British Airways are not operating travel arrangements without competition from other companies. British Rail is running its hotels very successfully in competition with other hoteliers. If Conservative Members want to foster competition, I see no reason why they should constantly crib when State monopolies seek to compete in a mixed economy.

Mr. Neubert: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood. We are advocating not just competition, but fair competition. I ask whether it is fair for a major nationalised corporation, such as British Airways—soon to become a company under the Companies Act—to have a right to routes, the prestige of public money behind it and cross subsidies available to it through the complexity of its operations world wide to compete with other travel agents, or tour operators, and be said to be competing fairly. That is the question. I do not adjudicate, but it is the question which will arise on the fringe of public sector monopoly activities.
I hope that the Government will turn their attention in the months ahead to the fact that no mention is made in the Bill of restrictive trade practices. Certainly no mention is made in the Bill of restrictive labour practices. I hope that any competition policy will comprehend the activities of trade unions and the monopolies of labour that they can establish in their markets. I have in mind the monopoly of the National Union of Mineworkers. The union is apparently denying to the NCB the opportunity of importing foreign coal at a price well below that at which it is available to the NCB in this country. That is happening at a time when the NCB cannot get enough coal for its own purposes, and one has to ask whether the public interest is served by such a monopoly.

Mr. Cryer: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that it would be in


the public interest to put more people on the dole? Mines are closing, our energy resources, which everyone accepts are enormously precious, are diminishing, and there is a decreasing amount of energy available to the world. Would it make sense to wreck the coal mining industry, which has experienced many redundancies over the past 20 years, through the importation of cheap coal? Surely it is in the public interest to keep people off the dole. The resulting loss of taxation revenue, payment of unemployment and supplementary benefits and the cost of retraining would mean that the public would be worse off.

Mr. Neubert: That is where the crunch comes. No one is suggesting that an industry should be allowed to collapse, but when it insists on having a monopoly that prevents the importation of any cheap coal we must question whether that is in the public interest. It is a matter of puzzlement to the public how it is possible to import coal all the way from Australia and for it to be cheaper than British coal. It may be a matter of easier access to the coal in Australia, but it is brought a long way and still sold more cheaply and the public want to be assured that they are getting the best of the bargain.
I understand the argument that we may benefit in the short term and suffer in the long term, but we must examine the monopolies in our society. They do not exist only as capitalism, red in tooth and claw. All sorts of monopolies are built into our economy. They need to be examined, and I hope that the Government will not shirk from taking the necessary action if they think it appropriate.
Another growing trend is the power of the retailing organisations. We have an efficient distribution service, and we should thank the major retailers for being in the front line of keeping prices down. However, I must remind the Government that the power to which I refer is increasing to the point where it may become monopolistic in itself.
We have already seen in the baking industry that the ability of supermarkets—which will be enhanced in the case of hypermarkets—to screw down the manufacturer by even bigger discounts, to the

detriment of other customers of that manufacturer, may not ultimately be in the long-term public interest.
That is happening with the brewers. They are facing such pressure from supermarket sales of alcoholic drinks that they are having to give preferential discounts to the supermarkets at the expense of other customers. That illustrates the changing pattern of the British economy and the changing balance between the right to trade freely and to exercise free competition, and that right going beyond the point where it can be allowed to continue without Government intervention. The Government have a role.
I welcome the Bill and think that it will provide a sharp stimulus to the British economy. Competition is not comfortable and is not popular with the public, but it is necessary if we are to get away from being bottom of the European league.
The Budget has provided many incentives for business to prosper. I look to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade for further opportunities, and I hope that he will bring forward the necessary mechanisms by which business may prosper in a mixed economy such as our own. I commend the Bill and hope that it will receive a Second Reading.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Stuart Holland: I want to address my contribution to the debate especially to clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill—that is to say, the clause pertaining to the abolition of the Price Commission and that quite remarkable clause pertaining to what is called "anti-competitive practice".
We have had a series of contributions by hon. Members on the Government Benches which are in character with that statement from the Secretary of State which we regret we have not got, in the clear sense that he told us, for example, that if he had had the time he would have explained the overall context of the Bill in relation to the Government's monetary and economic policies. In practice, what we have just had from the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) and other hon. Members opposite is exactly that.
The philosophy behind the Bill is not only to "roll back the frontiers of the


State" and "disengage the public sector", but also to undermine the bargaining power of labour by contributing to a higher level of unemployment. I am much indebted to the hon. Member for Collie Valley (Mr. Wainwright), who made the relevant point that to introduce legislation which actually claims to increase competition in a climate of industrial recession, which, with the Government's expenditure cuts and the other deflationary elements in the Budget, actually threatens us with slump, is to raise the question, "competition for what?".
Is it competition for investment? Competition in the middle of a recession? I hardly think so. The Bill reflects a philosophy which assumes that the competitive process, freed from State intervention, or, as the Conservatives prefer to call it, State interference, works at least in the long run over the medium term. The Bill assumes that if the State withdraws there will be a reality of price competition.
We have heard hon. Members looking forward to this new flourishing of price competition in the economy. But the Bill, in its very wide definition of anticompetitive practice, fails to distinguish price from non-price factors or the structural conditions for competition which have been stressed for centuries now, certainly since the time of Adam Smith and by virtually every theorist in the market, including—dare I repeat it?—Professor Milton Friedman, who has written a book called "Price Theory" and assumes that monopoly is an abuse of competition.
The Bill, like the statements of economic philosophy that we have had from the Government elsewhere—unfortunately, we have to refer to those other statements since we have had no statement from the Secretary of State—assumes that monopoly is in a subjective sense an abuse of competition rather than faces the reality that monopoly objectively arises from competition—because competition itself is an unequal process between firms and industries, in which the gains and the advantages go to those already established, to those who are already strong, versus those who are initially weak or later starters in the economy.
The other main element that the Bill does not refer to at all—here, I would

have much preferred the Bill at least to have followed the practice of some Community legislation, which at least begins statements on policy by saying" in view of factors such as monopoly abuse of power"; "in view of problems posed by multinational companies"—is the kind of major change in the structure of international trade and international prices which profoundly qualifies the assumed competitive process on which the Bill is implicitly based.
Take, for example, the element of competition. Take the phrase in clause 2(1) "restricting or preventing competition". It does not seem to be grasped by the Secretary of State that the kind of established structure that we already have in British industry of itself restricts or prevents competition through the simple fact that, as was well put in a debate in the House by the hon. Member for Havant and Waterloo (Mr. Lloyd), the entry cost, for example, into the large-scale integration or microcircuitry fields in the world today is somewhere near $1 billion at a time.
These entry barriers, through sheer size and scale alone, are major problems. They were hardly answered by the reply that day from the Secretary of State for Industry—the guru in absentia in much of this debate—that there are other minor, or smaller, areas of competition in electronics where it might be possible for the competitive process to achieve the end of production, distribution and export without State support. Although not reflected in any statement from the Conservative side of the House, the simple fact is that we are in a situation of unequal competition where prices no longer necessarily reflect costs; where one cannot assume that a normal profit has been made or that when productivity gains have been introduced into the economy these will be reflected in lower prices.
This is an interesting phenomenon, to which it appears that the Government have paid no attention but which is well appreciated elsewhere in Western Europe and the United States. If an established firm wishes to obstruct the entry of a new firm, it can do so either by not raising prices in inflationary conditions or by temporarily lowering prices in such a way as to establish, in effect, a barrier to the entry of the smaller firm. Even


if both firms in that product have equal costs, if the bigger firm has access to more finance and more financial muscle, and can get the backing of the market because it is more established, it can ride out, in practice, the period of lowering its prices longer than the firm that it seeks either to eliminate or to prevent entry into the market.
We get a paradox. If we pursue the kind of policy that the Government seek, believing in the transparency of the market and believing that prices reflect costs and productivity, the Secretary of State will no doubt give the Queen's Award to Industry to a company that has lowered its price temporarily or has refused to pass on a cost increase in order to eliminate competition. If this appears paradoxical to some Conservative Members, who appear totally ignorant of the scale and range of intervention pursued by those I understand they wish to see as their sister parties in the European Assembly, it is only to the loss of consumers in this country.
An hon. Member claimed that no other country has anything like the Price Corn-mission. But the prices and consumer affairs division of the French Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs is the size of a major Department. It has had such importance, not least under President Giscard d'Estaing, in the whole role and mechanism of the functioning of the economy that the man whom Giscard chose to appoint straight from the Civil Service to the role of Finance Minister in one of his first Governments was the former head of that directorate of prices and price control. The price controls and the range of criteria that such a division inside the equivalent of the Treasury in the French planning system employs for them are, and have been, more wide ranging than those so derisorily dismissed by a Conservative Member who has not had the courtesy to remain for the rest of the debate.
It is interesting to see how, in an economy such as the French or the Belgian, a whole policy is based on the concept called contrat de programme—programming contracts. These are negotiated price agreements with big business based on a specific investigation of the cost and profit structures of that busi-

ness. They are both wide ranging and involve a great deal of sophistication. Far from employing the equivalent of three men and a dog in the manner of the Office of Fair Trading, they involve senior civil servants and sophisticated economists in those respective economies.
Despite my considerable misgivings on the French economy and its form of State intervention, one of the great achievements is that the French are at least realistic about intervention. At least they have achieved a higher rate of growth of investment and output in such an economy, through a policy of rigorous price control and through frequently imposing total price freezes on a whole range of products. When they relax price freezes, they do so on a selective basis through what amounts to the equivalent of a Price Commission.
If the Government are to claim, as one hon. Member opposite did, that the Price Commission could not be said to have had an impact of one-thousandth of one per cent. on reducing price inflation, it is incumbent upon the Government to explain why their sister parties of a similar political persuasion—though I regret to say not identical in their philosophy since they are more committed to State intervention—choose to intervene across the range of prices focused on big business in such an extensive manner.
The other main area on which it is incumbent upon the Secretary of State to comment, if he intends to make a speech at all, covers the facts and figures of the real position of the British economy where in practice two or three firms too often dominated the existing structure of production, distribution and exchange.
How can the British public seriously be asked to believe that the introduction of a Bill which has one of the loosest definitions of "anti-competitive practice"—in fact one of the loosest definitions ever to have escaped platonic philosophy—will do more than weaken State power for intervention since it fails to give real powers to the Office of Fair Trading? How can the Secretary of State in all integrity offer this to the British people when the monopoly domination of the British economy is so real?
Let me give some examples. It is well known that in deposit banking some three companies account for 90 per cent. of


trade. In insurance, some half dozen companies represent more than half the assets. There is a similar position in construction. When have we seen rigorous competition on interest rates between the deposit banks or between the building societies which have a high level of concentration, whether or not it has been in a period of Conservative Government? Recently we have seen a state of affairs where the Prime Minister declared her intention of entering into what amounted to an offer to negotiate with the building societies on whether they would put up interest rates. In practice, it amounts to an offer of negotiation with a cartel, which is what we have in banking, in insurance and in the building societies.
I regret very much that the Secretary of State has not explained the economic philosophy behind the Bill. But if we take the kind of economic philosophy which is implied by the statements of the Secretary of State for Industry in a related area—and one can hardly say that he has been slow to make philosophic statements in this area—he draws attention to the "millions" of so-called entrepreneurs who are waiting to be unleashed by the withdrawal of the State and the removal of the heavy mantle of repression which it appears to him that State intervention lays upon them.
Let us consider such a structure. Not only in banking, insurance, construction and the building societies do we not find it. We do not find it in manufacturing industry. There is a marked and increasing tendency to monopoly concentration which is not checked even by the more powerful provisions for anti-monopoly and anti-trust intervention by the State in the British economy which the Secretary of State wishes to reduce.
In 1950, for example, the top 100 companies in the manufacturing sector represented about 20 per cent. of output. By 1970, that had already increased to nearly half of output.
There is what amounts to monopoly power in the kitchen, where in many goods, one, two or three firms control between 85 and 95 per cent. of output. With wallpaper, the companies are ICI and Wallpaper Manufacturers; in frozen fish and food, they are Unilever and Findus; in tinned soups, Nestlé, Heinz and Campbell; in powdered soups,

Nestle, Unilever and Knorr; margarine, Unilever and Kraft; in condensed and evaporated milk—

Mr. John Watson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that often the greatest competition comes in markets dominated not by 10 companies but by three? Will he explain exactly how the Price Commission affected the monopoly situation, as he described it, of interest rates, banks and building societies?

Mr. Holland: That is an interesting argument. The Secretary of State for Industry has talked about millions of entrepreneurs. That was defined as a competitive situation. Any textbook on economics will tell one that competition depends on multiple entry. Now we have a new Conservative definition, under which competition is not monopoly or duopoly but triopoly. With three firms dominating the market, we shall have competition. That argument is ludicrous.

Dr. Jeremy Bray: Is it not the case that the assumption about a competitive economy is that the price set by any one trader cannot shift the market price? In the example that the hon. Gentleman just gave, that is palpably untrue.

Mr. Holland: I am grateful for that intervention. When two or three firms dominate the market, there is hardly a financial journalist in Britain who by falling out of bed cannot earn his £10,000 or £15,000 a year, when the price of a major company goes up, whether it is in the financial sector or in manufacturing, by predicting that in the next two or three days the price of its competitors will rise.
To continue with my argument, in other areas in the household sector—in condensed and evaporated milk, instant coffee, detergents, soap, salt, virtually anything within the reach of the housewife—two or three firms dominate between 85 and 95 per cent. of the market.
In a written reply to me on 11 June, the Secretary of State for Trade said that separate information for retail food concentration in the upper half of the industry could not be given because of the "disproportionate cost" of calculating it. What is the disproportionate cost? The figures that I have given, which were published in 1974 by G. Walsh in a study by the National Institute

 
of Social and Economic Research, would have been available to any civil servant sufficiently familiar with the literature. It must call in question the seriousness of that reply, just as questions have been raised about the seriousness of the Minister not making a statement earlier, if he says that information is not available when it is of such a damning level of concentration as I have described.

Mr. Dorrell: May I refer the hon. Gentleman to the second part of the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton (Mr. Watson)? His right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) dubbed the Bill the "Abolition of the Price Commission" Bill. The hon. Member prefaced this development of his argument with the statement that the abolition of the Price Commission would somehow weaken the Government's pro-competitive stance in relation to these industries. How has the Price Commission affected any of those industries? How would the powers vested in the Commission and no longer to be vested in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission have helped the Government in that respect?

Mr. Holland: The hon. Member seems to be living in a world which is typical of the Conservative Party. If Tory Members say something to each other often enough, they eventually believe it. The public, who may not have been aware of the detailed interventions made by the Price Commission before the election, were made well aware of them shortly after the election. Within days of the Government coming to power and their announcement that they would abolish the Price Commission, the price of petrol rose by nearly 20p a gallon. The price of bread and coffee went up by several pence, as did several other household items.
It is important to stress the reality of monopoly power which Conservative Members refute or appear to ignore. God knows, that task must be getting harder for them as fewer firms dominate any sector of British industry. The mass of detailed EEC concentration studies over the 10 years 1964–1974, before inflation was affected by the OPEC price rises, were carried out by statisticians of seriousness—whatever one might think

about serious statisticians, or whatever doubts one might have about statistically significant correlations.
The fifth report on competition policy of the EEC states that this series of studies over a decade covering a wide range of industries in the Community showed that price inflation is rife in the more concentrated sectors of industry. In seeking to abolish the Price Commission the Government wholly ignore such evidence.
Further, the proposed abolition of the Price Commission is combined with a deflation policy. The Government do not appear to have taken into account the Maldague report on inflation to the EEC, which argued persuasively that when there is a reduction in the number of firms in an industry, and there is a fall in demand and sales because of a recession in the economy, business is now big enough to compensate for that fall in sales and demand by raising prices in order to maintain its cash flow.
It is interesting that this report should argue in such a way, and that it bears some relation to the arguments which are emerging from the EEC Commission. For it corroborates the approach and implicit philosophy in the work of the Price Commission and many of its reports.
Also it can be demonstrated that the British economy today is utterly different in price competition terms from the economy of the 1930s. This is relevant because much reference is made by the monetarists and the allegedly pure marketeers to the pre-war period before the rise of the so-called regulatory State and State intervention.
Thus, it is instructive to look at what happened to prices during the recession in the 1930s. It was a marked feature from 1931 to 1938 that prices in the British economy fell for a start, and then fell faster, lagging behind the fall in output in the economy in the 1930s and rising slower than it right through the decade. Those hon. Members who can remember that decade may be well aware that in that period there was a remarkable stability in prices and, although the economy was depressed, there also was a stability in real earnings.
The situation now is one where the transformation of the power of big


business has exhibited a classic vicious syndrome—inherent in the Government's economic philosophy—namely, that the more one deflates demand the more one inflates prices, because we have moved from a situation of consumer sovereignty to one of producer sovereignty. These are issues to which the Government hardly address themselves in this Bill. Certainly, the Bill does not resolve or remedy them in any way, given that it aims not to strengthen the Price Commission, which many of us on these Benches regard as necessary, but seeks to abolish it.

Mr. Nott: With the leave of the House—

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to place on record that, while I do not intend to object to the Government spokesman speaking again, the debate was opened in an incredible manner, with a great deal of contempt for the House. We are interested to hear what the Secretary of State has to say—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): Order. Will the hon. Gentleman come to his present point of order, without discussing what happened earlier?

Mr. Cryer: I wish to place on record that in future—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. With the greatest respect, I must remind the hon. Gentleman that a desire to put something on the record is not a point of order.

Mr. Cryer: But, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is important that debates in the House follow the usual convention, and the convention is that the Minister provides adequate information on which to base the debate. Because of the lack of information. which I assume is about to be filled, I am not exercising my right as a Member to shout "Object" so as to prevent the right hon. Gentleman from speaking at this stage, but I wish to point to the objection that we made at the beginning of our proceedings and the fact that he made a thorough hash of things at the opening.

Mr. Ioan Evans: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not understand this procedure. We are to adjourn the debate tonight and an opportunity

will be given to the Minister to speak when the debate resumes. There have been whole periods of the debate when the Secretary of State has not been present. Some of us have sat here throughout—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has made an incorrect assertion. The Secretary of State may speak again now or later only with the leave of the House.

Mr. Evans: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Objection taken. It would therefore appear that the Secretary of State does not have the unanimous leave of the House to speak again. Mr. Beaumont-Dark.

Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Obviously, there are many of us who do not understand—

Mr. John Smith: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that it would be for the benefit of the House if the Secretary of State were to explain why he did not speak earlier. If he were allowed to speak again, I think that it would be helpful to the House as a whole.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) insists on his objection, I have no alternative but not to allow the Secretary of State to speak at this point.

Mr. Evans: The right hon. Member made a two-minute speech and now he comes back and wants to speak again. Let us have an explanation.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to persist in his objection?

Mr. Evans: No, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

9.43 p.m.

Mr. Nott: I start by complimenting the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. McMahon) on a very eloquent and robust maiden speech. I am sure that we shall hear many more penetrating contributions from him. Although I did not know him, I know that many of us remember his predecessor. He was certainly held in affection by the House and we all hope that he has a happy retirement. I do not doubt that his


successor, the present Member for Govan, will be as robust as he was in representing the people of the Clyde.
I shall now answer the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans). He will he aware that I came to the House ready to open the debate at the normal time. As a result of earlier proceedings and a speech by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), which went on for a rather long time, my ability to give the full speech that I should like to have given—naturally, I had prepared it—was frustrated. It was because of that that I felt it would be a good idea to give the House the maximum opportunity to comment on the Bill. That has proved to be quite a wise course.
It has been a short but useful debate. We had an excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant), who went to the heart of the Bill and explained what we are trying to achieve. My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert) made a useful contribution, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell).
I regard the Bill as an important measure. I am grateful to the House for giving me the opportunity to answer some of the questions that have been raised during the short debate that we have been allowed today.

Mr. John Fraser: The right hon. Gentleman said that he would answer some of the questions raised in the debate. The House has given him leave to speak again and I think that he owes the House an apology for his behaviour and an explanation of the Bill. We shall get on better if he adopts that approach.

Mr. Nott: I have no apology to make to the House. I hope that I shall be allowed to answer some of the questions raised in the debate.

Mr. Maclennan: Mr. Maclennan rose—

Mr. Cryer: Mr. Cryer rose—

Mr. Nott: I want to answer the various questions that have been posed.

Mr. Cryer: I made my position clear. I said that I would not exercise my constitutional right to object to the right hon.

Gentleman speaking a second time. However, I want to hear his explanation of the Bill and not his reply to the debate. As I understand it, the debate is to continue. I want to hear what he would have said at the beginning of the debate.

Mr. Nott: I shall do my best to satisfy the hon. Gentleman in that regard. First, I shall answer a few of the questions asked by the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith). The right hon. Gentleman asked about the staff of the Price Commission. The contract staff represent about 70 per cent. of those on the staff side of the Commission. They have been given, or are being given, four months' pay in lieu of notice. A large proportion of the non-contract staff are members of the Civil Service. They will remain in the Civil Service and will return to other posts. All but two of the members of the Price Commission have terms of appointment that expire on 31 July. The names of the members who will serve from 31 July until the abolition of the Commission will be announced shortly. The minimum size of the Commission has been reduced from five members to three.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the speed of inquiries. Embodied in the Bill is the determination to enable the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to conduct inquiries more speedily than hitherto. The Commission is being required to undertake its reports into anti-competitive practices within six months. That period is subject to only one extension of three months. We hope that through the Bill we shall be able to ensure much speedier inquiries than hitherto.

Mr. MacIennan: Mr. MacIennan rose—

Mr. John Fraser: Mr. John Fraser rose—

Mr. Nott: I shall be delighted to give way, but I cannot do everything at once.

Mr. Fraser: There is no great hurry. The right hon. Gentleman will be able to continue subsequently. There appears to be nothing in the Bill that sets a six months' limit. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he will use the powers under the Fair Trading Act 1973 to set a six months' limit for investigations into anti-competitive practices? Am I right in saying that he is not telling the House that there will be the same time limit for


a full-scale monopoly references to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission?

Mr. Nott: The existing Monopolies and Mergers Commission investigations are continuing—as the hon. Gentleman knows, they can continue for three years—and will continue in the normal way. Those are investigations into what I have described as statutory monopolies. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, under the Fair Trading Act we are allowing much speedier investigations to deal with anticompetitive practices. We are using the time limits in that Act for the purpose of these investigations.
The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) asked me to give a short description of the Bill. I am happy to do so. I begin with the area of the Bill that was referred to by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright), who is not in his place at present. The hon. Gentleman talked about anti-competitive practices. We could have strengthened powers in that area by taking two approaches. First, we could have listed in the Bill a variety of anti-competitive practices and prohibited them, introducing penalties for breach of the prohibition. That would have implied that certain practices were invariably anti-competitive and invariably against the public interest.
By proceeding in a similar way to the anti-trust legislation in the United States, we should have brought the whole procedure into the courts. That would have much more nearly approached the United States procedure. I am answering the point raised by the hon. Member for Colne Valley. The alternative was the new approach in the Bill of taking a broad definition of an anti-competitive practice and then seeking in each case to establish by a short investigation, without any sanctions, whether a prima facie case of limited competition was evident—and, if it was evident, whether it was appropriate for a fuller investigation as a practice that might operate against the public interest.
If the Director General of Fair Trading thought that prima facie there was an anti-competitive practice in existence and, secondly, that it was appropriate that it should be investigated to see whether it was against the public interest or not, he could refer it to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, under the Fair Trading Act, for a six-months' investigation, with

an extension of three months should that be required by the chairman, who would be allowed to ask for that single extension. That is the framework for investigating anti-competitive practices. We chose those procedures from the outset as we were determined not to impose unnecessary burdens and uncertainties on industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central illustrated well some of the burdens and uncertainties that were placed on industry by the pre-notification of prices and the powers of the Price Commission to defer price increases for three months. The Opposition talk of the Commission as though it had power to stop prices going up. The Commission's powers to defer price increases were limited to three months. It had no further powers. Superimposed around the structure of the Commission was an enormous procedure for the prenotification of all prices above a certain level. That caused some of the burdens of which the Government were anxious to dispose by means of the procedures that we now seek to establish in the Bill. We did not want to embark on a course similar to that of the United States. We wanted a new approach. I genuinely believe that it will be looked at with interest by the other countries that are seeking to change their legislation in this area.
The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) referred to the French and other cases. The French had a price commission of a kind, but over the past year they have progressively withdrawn price controls. Their present body is called the directorate of competition and consumer affairs. They have moved much closer to our approach. With respect, the hon. Gentleman's textbook—perhaps he wrote it himself—is a little out of date. He will find that other countries will move nearer to our kind of investigation.

Mr. Stuart Holland: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is well aware that in France since the war there have been periods of total price freeze, relaxation of price controls, price freeze again, changes in institutions, sometimes inside the plan and sometimes inside the Ministry of Finance. The interesting feature of the past 25 years is that there has been a consistent policy of statutory price control in France.

Mr. Nott: The swings of policy in France are not totally unfamiliar to all of us in this House. I understand that there have been changes in policy in that country. The hon. Gentleman specifically referred to a price commission being in operation and I was pointing out that the French are probably moving nearer to our way.

Mr. Neubert: Did I not read somewhere that the French had recently removed the control on the price of bread, which had existed for nearly 200 years since the Revolution?

Mr. Nott: That may well be right. I cannot answer that for certain.

Mr. John Smith: It is now 9.55 p.m., and it may be that the Secretary of State has the intention of terminating his speech shortly. He will be aware that hon. Members have many questions to ask him about his explanation of the Bill and the various clauses. Indeed, I have some myself. Had things proceeded in the usual manner, we would have been able to put questions. I think that we shall all he content if the Secretary of State will assure us that he will not conclude his speech at 10 p.m. but will continue it when the debate on the Bill is resumed.

Mr. Nott: The procedures in this House have always, alas, been a mystery to me. I shall continue with my speech and endeavour to answer as many of the questions posed by the right hon. Gentleman as I can. But in reply to requests made from the Opposition Front Bench earlier in the day, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has agreed that the debate should be adjourned. There will therefore be plenty of opportunity for answering all the questions that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends wish to ask.

Mr. Maclennan: When the right hon. Gentleman opened the debate with his speech of three minutes, he said that had he had time he would have taken the opportunity to explain to the House the interrelationship of competition policy with the Government's monetary, financial and economic policy. Simply to answer, in the course of a few minutes, some of the questions raised by some of the hon. Members who participated in the

debate is to go much less far than he indicated to the House that he would wish to go. That being so, I hope that the Secretary of State will take up the point made by my right hon. Friend and accept the invitation to conclude his remarks not tonight but on a later occasion.

Mr. Nott: I will carry on with what I wish to say, because I am trying to satisfy Opposition Members by answering their questions on the Bill. If I had opened the debate and spoken for half an hour or an hour, there could have been complaints about the length of my speech, bearing in mind that there were only two and a half hours left in which to hear what hon. Members had to say.
What is new in this legislation is that for the first time an individual practice by an individual firm can be thoroughly investigated, and if it is an anti-competitive practice it can be stopped should that practice be found to be against the public interest. Then, of course, consequences flow from the existing powers held by the Government under legislation which is on the statute book at the present time.
A new departure in the Bill—and one that I should have thought the whole House would welcome—is that we are bringing in new legislation to enable the Government to refer specific practices that we believe might abuse the monopoly power of the statutory corporations, and we are arranging that these can be brought before the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for investigation.
I should have thought that the whole House would welcome the fact that statutory corporations are being treated in the Bill in exactly the same way as the private sector. This is the first time that this has happened. The Director General of Fair Trading has the power under the Bill to look at anticompetitive practices in the nationalised industries in exactly the same way that he has the power to do in the private sector. This seems to me to be a major advance and one that right hon. and hon. Members should genuinely welcome.
As I said, we do not even feel that the power which we will give to the Director General of Fair Trading to treat the private and public sectors exactly alike


goes quite far enough. We wish to bring in new powers on public sector industries and we have included in the list—

It being Ten o'clock. the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

NORTHERN IRELAND (APPROPRIATION)

10.1 p.m.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Hugh Rossi): I beg to move,
That the draft Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979, which was laid before this House on 4 July, be approved.
The order will be made under paragraph 1 of schedule 1 to the Northern Ireland Act 1974.
A number of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, in accordance with past practice on these occasions, have been kind enough to give me warning of the major topics that they wish to raise during the course of the ensuing debate. So that we, in turn, may be of the greatest assistance to the House, ministerial colleagues not required in Belfast have agreed to be present to deal with matters falling within their own areas of responsibility. If this meets with the convenience of the House, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in charge of the Northern Ireland Department of Commerce will intervene at a convenient point to answer matters relating to the Harland and Wolff shipyard and to natural gas supply to the Province, which were the subject matters of written statements earlier today to coincide incidentally with this debate.
Since indication has also been given that the Housing Executive, with particular reference to the Rowland report, is a major item of concern, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in charge of the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment will wind up the debate and will also deal with education questions, on which he is spokesman in the House.
Therefore, I propose to confine myself to introducing the order and I will do so as shortly as possible so as to give right hon. and hon. Members the maximum amount of time to present their arguments on those other matters, although I appreciate that as a result of the amendment that has been accepted by the Government they have until tomorrow at 1 p.m. to present their arguments.
The main purpose of the draft order now before the House is to authorise the

issue and appropriation of the balance of the financial provision for Northern Ireland departmental services for 1979–80. Right hon. and hon. Members will recall that a proportion of the sums needed for 1979–80 has already been appropriated under the provisions of the Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1979, which was approved by the House on 7 March. Money, as needed, will be paid from the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. [Interruption.] I do not know whether hon. Members on the Opposition Benches wish to intervene. I must be mistaken. I thought that I heard a voice in the background.
The presentation of the supporting main Estimates volume—

Mr. Dennis Skinner: It is suggested that the person who was, perhaps, trying to speak—he made an attempt earlier today and another attempt just before he rose to speak—might have been the Secretary of State for Trade. However, it is not him, so it might have been one of his hon. Friends who wanted to intervene.

Mr. Rossi: I just wondered whether hon. Members on the Opposition Benches wished to intervene. If they do not, I shall continue to present the order to the House. I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
The presentation of the supporting main Estimates volume has been altered from previous years. First, when preparing the 1979–80 Estimates Northern Ireland Departments have kept in line with Great Britain Departments by assimilating cash limits and main Estimates. Consequently, 35 of the 48 Votes are fully cash limited. The remaining 13 are completely exempt from cash limits control.
Secondly, Estimates were generally presented in the past on the basis of pay and price levels prevailing at the time they were prepared usually some months before the start of the financial year. However, the provision being sought for 1979–80 in the draft order now before the House includes an element to reflect estimated pay and price changes occurring during the year.
The total of the main Estimates provision being sought for 1979–80 includes the sum already approved by this House


in March 1979 and is £1,642 million. This compares with a total Estimates provision, including supplementaries, of £1,522 million in 1978–79. The sum being asked for is in line with the public expenditure survey allocation for Northern Ireland departmental services, and £1,185 million, or 72 per cent., will be subject to cash limits control. The draft order and the supporting main Estimates volume take account of the reductions in public expenditure required as a result of the Budget Statement on 12 June.
The various services for which provision is now being sought are listed in the second part of the schedule to the order. More detailed information is given in the main Estimates volume, copies of which were placed in the Library on 4 July. I should now like to draw the attention of the House to the main increases and decreases in expenditure compared with 1978–79.
Class I, Vote 2, on agricultural support, shows a decrease to £9 million in the 1979–80 provision in comparison to the total allocation of £59 million for 1978–79. This is because the provision being sought for 1979–80 includes only expenditure relating to 1978–79 for the meat industry employment scheme, aid to the milk industry and feed price allowances for pig, poultry and egg production. It is a remanet payment. The intention is that Supplementary Estimates will be presented at a later date for the continuation of these schemes. However, £2 million has been included in this Estimate to improve agricultural output by bringing more land into effective use and to boost employment in rural areas.
In Class II, Vote 1, dealing with industrial support and regeneration, there is a net increase of £9 million over last year in the provision being sought. Over £7 million of the additional funds will be used for the provision of advance factories, purpose-built factories and extensions to existing factories. This is a reflection of the increasing interest shown by industrialists in the attractive range of investment incentives which Northern Ireland has to offer.
Class II, Vote 2 shows a reduction of £7·5 million through the termination of selective employment payments from 31

July 1979, and this brings Northern Ireland into line with Great Britain.
The amount being sought in Class II, Vote 3 for general support to industry is £133 million. That requirement would have been some £9 million higher had it not been for the recently announced delay of four months in the payment of capital investment grants. Additional help of £21 million is being provided for the aircraft and shipbuilding industries, while the provision for selective assistance to industry is down by £23 million. In connection with the latter, it is anticipated that there will be greater use of loans from the private sector, backed up where necessary by guarantees from the Department of Commerce.
The estimate for the functioning of the labour market in Class II, Vote 5 totals £64 million, compared with £41 million last year. Because of the difficulties in anticipating receipts from the European social fund, only token amounts are shown as appropriations-in-aid in main Estimates, and that accounts for about £16 million of the increase. The balance of about £6 million is needed for expenditure on the youth opportunities programme, industrial training and Enterprise Ulster".
In Class IV, Vote 1, covering the roads service, provision of £94 million is being sought—just under £11 million more than last year. About £7 million of the additional amount will be spent on the construction of new public roads and bridges in Northern Ireland. A further £2 million will be used on road improvement carried out by direct labour schemes which will support over 750 jobs during the year.
Housing services, Class V, Vote 1, show an increase of £19 million over last year, bringing the provision to £111 million. The housing grant to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, which is based on the difference between the Executive's expenditure and its income, and the recoupment of its expenditure on grants for the renovation of private sector dwellings, is increased by £14 million. An additional £4 million is being made available to housing associations in 1979–80 because of the expected growth in their activities.
The water and sewerage services, Class VI, Vote 1, show a net increase of


£6 million to £60 million for 1979–80. The major part of this additional money will be used in the construction and improvement of water and sewerage services throughout the Province.
The increase of £11 million over last year's figure of £123 million in Class VIII, Vote 1, schools, is mainly due to increased teacher salary costs. The provision being sought takes account of the full-year effect of the additional 225 posts that were approved in September 1978. The cost of one-year in-service training courses continues to be reflected in the Estimates.
In Class VIII, Vote 2, expenditure on higher and further education, the amount being sought is £56 million, an increase of £6 million over last year's figure. Recurrent grants to the Queen's university of Belfast, the New university of Ulster and the Ulster polytechnic account for over half of the increase.
Class VIII, Vote 4, for education and library boards, shows a requirement of £157 million this year compared with £143 million in 1978–79. Pay increases account for £4 million of the extra provision that is sought, with the balance mainly coming about as a result of price increases on current expenditure.
In Class IX, Vote 1, health and personal services, the provision sought in the Estimates is £287 million—a net increase of £30 million over the allocation for 1978–79. The additional money is needed to continue the improvement in health and personal social services and for pay and price increases.
Class X, Vote 1, which comprises the Consolidated Fund contribution to the National Insurance Fund, shows an increase of almost £7 million over the 1978–79 payment. The amount sought in Vote 2, non-contributory benefits, does not include any provision for the 1979 uprating. It is approximately £2·5 million lower than 1978–79 because only a token amount has been taken for lump sum payments to pensioners and, resulting from the higher rate of child benefit, there has been a reduction in the provision for supplementary benefits.
The amount sought in Class X, Vote 3, family benefits, is £37 million greater than in 1978–79. This results from the higher rates of child benefit payable from April 1979.
The present order also provides for the issue and appropriation of £10—slightly different from the order of figures that we have been considering so far. This arises out of an overspending in the financial year 1977–78. The reasons for the excess Vote, which occurred in Class II, Vote 7, administration and miscellaneous services, by the Department of Manpower Services, are set out in the statement of excess, which was placed in the Library some weeks ago. The Public Accounts Committee has considered the excess Vote and recommended that the necessary sum should be made available.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The Minister has just given the House a valuable analysis of the differences between the total sums for 1979–80 and the previous year. Will he confirm that those differences comprise three separate elements? One is a real increase in expenditure, the second is the difference in the value of money between the two years, and the third is the fact that in the present year, as opposed to the last, the Estimates take account of prospective increases in expenditure due to decline in the value of money and increase in prices. If that is correct, it puts into a correct perspective the appearance of huge increases in expenditure this year, as compared with last.

Mr. Rossi: That is to a certain extent right. I mentioned in opening that last year's figures were based on expected increases, whereas this year they are based upon actual increases, with inflation taken into account.
That concludes the time I wish to take in drawing attention to the major effects of the order. I hope that I have drawn attention to its more significant features. I or my colleagues will try to answer any questions that right hon. and hon. Members may wish to raise in the debate. If for any reason we are unable to do so, we shall note the points made and write to the hon. Members concerned.

I commend the order to the House.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. Brynmor John: I wish first to make two procedural points. I acquit the Minister of being responsible for business, although I notice that, as to the manner born, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has taken up a position that he occupied for many years as


the Conservatives' Chief Whip. The old Adam must be coming out in him again.
I must reiterate the complaint that I think is widely expressed on both sides of the House about the time at which this debate is taking place. It is not for reasons of personal convenience that we make that complaint. As the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) said in an intervention this afternoon, when he told the Leader of the House to do better next time, it is for the sake of Northern Ireland and the importance of the subject that the order should be debated at a time more convenient to all concerned.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison: The hon. Gentleman is not quite right. I really asked that we should try to do better than the previous Government in this matter. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not now complain that things are being done as they were under the Labour Government.

Mr. John: I remember the hon. Gentleman's words even better than he does, which must be a mark of the impression that they made on other hon. Members. He said that he thought that the Leader of the House had come into office pledged to do better, and that he had not done better. Therefore, his invitation to the right hon. Gentleman was for him to do better. The hon. Gentleman is clearly pregnant with contribution and no doubt he will make it in due course.
If we, in the first Session of a Parliament that the Government hope will last five years, cannot do better than to put such an order before the House at 10 p.m., I wonder what will happen in the second and third years of the Parliament, if it lasts that long. I hope that Ministers will convey those feelings to the Leader of the House.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) answered the previous debate on the appropriation order he was pressed to provide further advance information in order to shape the debates and inform the hon. Members who took part in them. My hon. Friend undertook to investigate how we could help hon. Members, but the Government have not been able to provide any more information for this debate. I hope that the Northern Ireland Office will note that fact and that Ministers 

will be able to give us further information in future.
That request is given added strength by the Under-Secretary's statement on Harland and Wolff today. A complaint has been made about the way in which that statement was made. It contains expressions such as:
Consequently, the process of contraction at the yard may well have to continue further
and
Some further decline in the shipbuilding work force is inevitable".
At all stages, we are given general information. However, my information—and I understand from the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) that it is also the information of the Belfast Telegraph—is that a job loss of 2,000 is being mentioned. If that is an accurate assessment, the information should be provided during our debate.
It appears—I put it no higher, because I understand the difficulties of Ministers—that meetings took place in Northern Ireland to inform certain parties of the statement before it was made in the House and certainly before it was put on the board here. I hope that the advance information that I have asked for will be given in future so that we can avoid such a situation arising again.
I also wish to raise the details of the implications of the £35 million cut in public expenditure. I am grateful to Ministers for sending me a great deal of information—on some occasions as I plough through press statement after press statement the gratitude is attenuated—but on no occasion of which I know has the implication in manpower terms of the £35 million cut been spelt out in the House.
However, I have a letter dated 13 June which does spell out the effect on, for example, training schemes. It would be of great assistance to the House if the information available to Northern Irish bodies about the details of the cuts was also made available to hon. Members so that we could conduct our debates properly.
My speech will concentrate on the industrial and economic outlooks, the Votes of which are to be found in Class II of the Estimates. There is common ground, certainly among employers and trade unions in Northern Ireland, that the economic


problems there are among the most intractable in the United Kingdom. There is also common agreement that the creation and maintenance of employment depends crucially upon Government investment and Government incentives.
Since we last debated Northern Ireland matters about three weeks ago, there have been three major developments, the intensification of an older development and a shadow cast over the future.
I will deal first of all with the three new developments. In one way or another they all emanate from the policy of the Secretary of State for Industry towards regional aid and the role of the National Enterprise Board in Britain, and from the statement about shipbuilding made by the Minister of State, Department of Industry today. We were heartened to learn that Northern Ireland was to be preserved from the Josephite rigours visited upon other areas, but in reply to the hon. Member for Antrim. South (Mr. Molyneaux) the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced some sort of departmental review into the question whether it was the most effective instrument and whether we were making the best use of resources. I do not wish to be unkind to the Government, but I must say that when Tory circles mention making the best use of money, or a more rigorous use of money, it usually means that they are looking to spend less money.
In order to remove uncertainty in Northern Ireland, I want to be given an idea how this investigation is to be carried out and what the time scale is for its report. I put it to the Government that if they find a more effective way of using the money, to target it upon the real economic problems of Northern Ireland, that will be used as an excuse to cut the total money available to the Province. The money should be used on the new formula to create new and extra jobs. It is only by spending at least the same amount of money on industrial incentives that we shall begin to tackle Northern Ireland's mountainous employment problem.
Secondly, I understand that the Northern Ireland Development Agency will continue as before. I should be

grateful if the Minister of State would confirm that to be the case.
I come to the third point raised this afternoon. We would like further particulars of what is implied in the statement made about Harland and Wolff. Does it entail the cutting of the work force from about 7,500 to just over 5,000—or is it too early for the Government to estimate? If we are agreed that public expenditure is vital to the economic and employment well-being of Northern Ireland, we cannot but be dismayed by the Government's cut of £35 million in public expenditure for Northern Ireland.
The Government should now spell out in more detail how many people will lose their jobs as a result of these cuts and also how much loss in quality of the services there will be. Under the signature of the Minister of State, I know that as a direct result of this package about 600 adult and youth opportunity training places will be removed from Northern Ireland. That in itself will be a serious matter. But there is also the sinister threat that, in addition, the cash limits applied to departmental expenditure will necessitate a reduction in volume of activity in the employment transfer scheme and on training for young people and adults. That is nowhere spelt out, even in the letter sent to Northern Ireland organisations.
What will be the effect of cash limits, in addition to the cuts in public expenditure, on the retraining of youth and adults in Northern Ireland? An increase in public expenditure was supposed to offset decline in manufacturing industry and in the service industries. It is common ground between us that unemployment is already at 11·1 per cent. in Northern Ireland, and if we know where and by how many more that unemployment total is to be added to we may gauge exactly the problems that face the Northern Ireland economy.
I come now to the shadow of which I spoke earlier. The Ulster Commentary had a headline in its July-August edition—I acquit the Secretary of State of having sub-edited it—"Cushioned Impact of the Cuts", but the text below that marvellous headline did not quite live up to it. I think that the whole matter was designed to be reassuring about the effect


of the public expenditure cuts on Northern Ireland. Those were the public expenditure cuts announced by the Chancellor in the Budget a month ago.
We know that today an emergency Cabinet meeting was held. It is widely reported that a further £1,000 million cut in public expenditure, on the part of spending Departments, is being called for. So wide and so unanimous is the reporting that one might conclude, if one were suspicious, that there had been a deliberate briefing on the background. If the report is correct, it is vital that we should know the impact on Northern Ireland. It is unlikely that we shall be cushioned to the extent that the Ulster Commentary pretends that we are cushioned from the present cuts. The Government must tell the House soon, in an oral statement, how people's lives and their employment will be affected. Both quality of life and prospects for employment impinge on the many tragic incidents in Northern Ireland that we have to debate all too frequently.
Class II mentions the selective employment premium which, as the Government have announced, has ended. This is not a happy augury. The Government are playing down the effect and claiming that the situation is being brought into line with the rest of Great Britain, but they have not challenged the estimate given by the previous Government that the selective employment premium had helped to preserve 10,000 jobs in Northern Ireland. I accept that the removal of the SEP will not eliminate all those jobs, but it will remove a number at the margins. We are entitled to know the Government's estimate of the loss of jobs, how many will disappear, and on what time scale.
Much though I applaud the visit of the Under-Secretary of State—the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw)—to the United States and hope that his initiative will succeeed in attracting new investment, I am sure that he will be aware that there is a sense of grievance among those employers indigenous to Northern Ireland that newcomers are being treated more favourably than established Northern Ireland employers. The removal of the selective employment premium will add to that sense of grievance.
There are places in Northern Ireland, as Ministers will know, that are blacker

than black in relation to the overall unemployment picture—

Mr. Rossi: We have considered carefully the selective employment premium and its effect on jobs. Our advice is that it will have no effect at all. The hon. Gentleman must look at the matter in its proper context. When the selective employment premium was first introduced in 1967–68, it represented £3·12p against an average industrial wage of £19 a week. It was a significant factor in influencing the question whether employers took on people and kept them. Today, it is £2 against an average industrial wage of between £89 and £90 a week. That pales into insignificance as an incentive, or lack of incentive, in the retention or creation of new jobs.

Mr. John: I understand what the hon. Gentleman says. It is the justification in the Budget for the removal of the selective employment premium. I believe that SEP has been a significant help at the margins, especially for small and medium-sized industry. The job loss, therefore, may be significant. I am merely asking the Government, if they have made the calculation, what job loss will occur and what is their calculation of the employment effect of removing this assistance.
I was dealing with the question of the blacker than black areas, such as the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), in which the rate of unemployment is over 20 per cent. I plead with the Government, in future dealings, to show more patience, when talking about the viability of firms, than was shown towards Antrim Crystal recently.
I was in Northern Ireland when the chairman of Antrim Crystal made his broadcast. He said that because of the time needed to train glass blowers—which I understand is seven years, and this assistance was being chopped off after three years—the time for viability had not even been reached, so there was no sensible prospect of its coming towards viability. If that is so, the Government have been hasty. What is even worse, they have ignored the social and economic costs and the costs on public expenditure of creating unemployment in an area with an already very high level.
The Secretary of State for Industry said that his chief aim in the amendments to regional aid that he was making was to target the available aid upon the worst of the areas. If he is right and he can do that—I do not believe that he can—I plead with Northern Ireland Ministers to target their assistance upon the blackest spots, which have unemployment levels of 20 per cent. and 25 per cent., so that we can tackle the problems where they arise. Northern Ireland Ministers will know, as I do, the relative immobility of labour in Northern Ireland. People do not travel very far to work, for many understandable reasons.
It is in this context that the cut of more than 600 in the number to be industrially retrained is to be viewed. If Northern Ireland is to widen its economic base, it must have a wider capacity to offer new skills and opportunities. The public expenditure cuts that have been announced, together with the cash limits, at whose extent we can only guess, will lessen the chances of Northern Ireland being able to provide for the future a range of skills amongst its work force which are attractive to employers.
I deal next with the existing problem, which is intensifying, has intensified and will intensify daily. I refer, of course, to the oil crisis. This has had a very serious effect on Northern Ireland, because the price of oil dictates the cost of electricity generation. That is to be seen in the appropriations and the reference to the short-term aid given to the electricity industry. For all that I know, the Government may be contemplating further short-term aid of that kind.
The high and increasing cost of oil increases the cost of industrial manufacture, and that is why short-term aid is being given by the Government to try to redress the manufacturing disadvantage to Northern Ireland industry resulting from the high cost of power. Nevertheless, I believe that Northern Ireland industry must be decreasingly competitive compared with other parts of the country.
What is often overlooked, and ought not to be, is that in addition to the cost of manufacture of products the high cost of power makes the cost of living greater in Northern Ireland than in other parts

of the country. It makes it an expensive place in which to live. Although family incomes are well below the United Kingdom average, in Northern Ireland family expenditure is more than 2 per cent. higher.
Since everyone agrees that the oil crisis is neither a short-term nor a minor one, we have to take a long-term view. Two major solutions have been put forward. The first is the connection of Northern Ireland to the gas grid. In my discussions with employers and trade union representatives in Northern Ireland, however, I was not convinced that that would be of very great benefit to manufacturing capacity, because manufacturing industry in Northern Ireland is geared heavily to the use of electricity.
Nor do I believe that the introduction of another form of energy would help to make electricity any cheaper. I notice from a long answer, together with an explanatory document, which is in the Library, that the Government have rejected the solution, not only because it would involve those disadvantages, or lack of advantages, but because it would cost £100 million. Although the Government have a better opportunity than I to judge, I would not dissent from their judgment.
Both unions and industrialists have urged the connection of Northern Ireland to the British electricity grid, where they see the possibility of cheaper and more efficient use of electricity, but no one should be in any doubt that that would have employment implications for Northern Ireland. The electricity service currently employs 6,500 men in Northern Ireland, many of them on the generating side.
When the grid has surplus power, the habit of the CEGB is to knock out first those stations with the highest cost of generation. My conversations lead me to believe that Northern Ireland has the highest costs of generation, so Northern Ireland would be knocked out first, and perhaps closed down if there were a permanent surplus.
There is not a shortage of generating capacity in Northern Ireland. When Kilroot comes on stream in the late summer of 1980 there will be a surplus of energy generated within Northern Ireland, which in happier times could be


transferred to the South—which would be very helpful.
But the vital thing, and what we must identify, is not the method of generating but the fuel that has been used to fire the power stations that generate the electricity. The choice of oil, which, after Kilroot, will form 90 per cent. of the firing for electricity generation, has left Northern Ireland extremely exposed and dependent not only upon an expensive and increasingly expensive method but on a fuel in which we shall continue to have to economise.
Coal was regarded for a long time as old-fashioned and uncompetitive. In its conventional wisdom, the CEGB has for long waged what can only be called a vendetta against coal, but the conventional wisdom of the electricity industry and its preference for coal and coal alone has been shown to be mistaken. The rising price of oil and the need to conserve supplies dictate to the electricity industry in Northern Ireland and to the Northern Ireland Office—I know that Ministers are considering this—the conversion of some oil-fired stations to dual-firing capacity with oil and coal, so that we may enjoy the advantages of coal. Certainly in future it will have the advantages of greater viability and will not leave Northern Ireland a hostage to the oil crises of the future.
I am sure that the coal industry can and will assist in this work. We should aim for dual-fired stations accounting for about 50 per cent. of total capacity instead of the present 10 per cent. That may be costly, but it is no more costly than the price that we would have to pay by leaving Northern Ireland exposed to one fuel, the world price of which is increasing.
By spending cuts—both those which have been announced and those which are lurking for the autumn—the Government have thrown a shadow over the Northern Ireland economy. The cuts have weakened economic life and jeopardised employment. The Government hope that reductions in employment caused by public expenditure will be countered by the stimulus to the private sector.
The job loss created by public expenditure cuts is here and now. What is the Government's calculation of the take-up by private industry of the stimulus in the

Budget? I do not believe that that will ever completely make up for the cuts in public expenditure. If that is so, not only will Northern Ireland workers be on the dole for a long time but the jobs may disappear, never to return.
If private industry is not enthused by the Budget, and the rush to buy shares and invest in Northern Ireland does not materialise, I hope that the Government will be brave enough to jettison the dogma that has resulted in public expenditure cuts and increase public expenditure for Northern Ireland.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. James Kilfedder: I have already protested about the way in which this business is being taken at a late hour and how we have to debate important Northern Ireland matters throughout the night. It is a disgrace that Northern Ireland should be treated like this. It is time that such procedures were ended.
I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) about the cuts in public expenditure. It is ominous for jobs, homes and the standard of living in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Government will make it clear that as much money as was spent last year will be spent this year—taking inflation into account—to ensure that Northern Ireland people will not suffer in terms of jobs or in any other way.
In the last 10 years Northern Ireland has suffered agonisingly from the IRA campaign of terror. It needs all the financial and moral support that it can get if it is to be carried through these dark days.
In the debate about four weeks ago when I referred to Northern Ireland I said that if there had to be expenditure cuts the Government should consider abolishing Enterprise Ulster. That would save money and enable wasted money to be used in other ways. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive has shown that it is not capable of providing the homes that are so desperately needed in the Province.
I hope that the Government will give an assurance tonight that the people of Northern Ireland will no longer have to put up with substandard housing or, indeed, no homes at all, and that homes will be made available for them. I have


emphasised many times in the past that in my constituency there are young people desperately waiting for a home, living in appalling conditions, and these are not conditions in which people should be expected to live.
Therefore, may we have an assurance from the Government that every possible effort will be made to get rid of the long waiting lists for homes, especially in North Down, which seems to attract people from Belfast, so that homes are there for local people in North Down and homes are also built for people in Belfast and elsewhere? Certainly, a great deal needs to be done in Belfast to bring the people back into the city and to revive it again.
In a normal democratic society, the responsibility for public authority housing would be safely in the hands of elected councillors. But not so in Northern Ireland, where we have a kind of corporate State tailor-made for the bureaucracy, with every important facet of life, whether public or private, controlled, regulated and dominated by statutory boards.

Mr. A. W. Stallard: I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman's argument, trying to reconcile it with the views that he has expressed over a number of years in support of those who now form the Conservative Government. I am talking about the sale of 54,000 council houses in Northern Ireland. How does the hon. Gentleman reconcile what he is now saying with that? It seems a complete contradiction to support the ready sale of council houses and then bemoan the fact that there are thousands of people who can never afford to buy a house at any price and have to rely on the rented sector but who cannot get a house. It just does not add up.

Mr. Kilfedder: I shall not get involved in those arguments between the Socialists, on the one hand, and the Tories, on the other. I have spoken clearly on this matter year after year ever since I was first elected in 1964, no matter which Government were in power. I do not mind whether houses are sold so long as there are houses for people in Northern Ireland to rent or to buy. They need homes. If they can buy them, that is probably the best way for people to begin their married

life but otherwise let them have homes to rent.
Northern Ireland has been treated appallingly by previous Governments, including the Government which the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. Stallard) supported. The Socialists speak a great deal about democracy and the rights of the individual, but in Northern Ireland they trampled on those rights. What we have today is a system of statutory boards which seem to control every aspect of life in the Province.
Not one of the members of those boards is elected. All are nominated by the Secretary of State or one of his Ministers. The last local body which had any pretension to a democratic basis was the Belfast harbour commissioners, who were elected on a limited franchise, but the Labour Government dealt very smartly with that and, instead of making it more democratic, they snuffed democracy out by making that also a nominated body. That is certainly no contribution to restoring normal life in the Province.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: The hon. Gentleman says that Northern Ireland has been treated in an appalling way. Am I right or wrong in thinking that public expenditure per head in Northern Ireland is substantially higher than it is in England, in Wales or in Scotland, which is smaller and better treated than is England? Am I not right in thinking that public expenditure per head is significantly greater in Northern Ireland than it is in any other part of the United Kingdom?

Mr. Kilfedder: I agree. I have said that constantly. I am sorry that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has not heard me making that statement on many occasions in the past. I agree, and jobs depend on public money.

Mr. Dalyell: Will the hon. Gentleman explain his contradictory remarks?

Mr. Kilfedder: There is no contradiction in what I have said. I find it difficult to follow the hon. Gentleman. I do not intend to be confused by him and the Ulster people will not be confused by him.
In Northern Ireland we have a form of colonial Government from Westminster.


We have statutory boards that are composed of those nominated by the Secretary of State or by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office.
The Conservative Party manifesto stressed that the growth of quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations is detrimental to our way of life. The Conservative Party—properly, in my view—deplored the trend of an increasing number of quangos. What action do the Government intend to take in Northern Ireland, which administratively is one large quango? It is a mass of complex, competing and conflicting quangos.
The Labour Government, for example, allocated £2 million to the Belfast area of need programme. Most of the money went on salaries for extra staff in the Belfast education and library board and the Belfast corporation. Most of the rest of the money was absorbed in stationery and typewriters to service the extra staff and the committees. Less than £700,000 was spent on refurbishing schools, community centres, parks and playing fields. That demonstrates the desperate need to take care of the expenditure of public money.
The project was vital to Belfast and to those who live in the run-down, dilapidated areas which are a disgrace to the community. Much needs to be done to restore morale to those in Belfast and in other areas who suffer in that way. The whole affair was hopelessly botched by the bureaucrats, by the usual bureacratic muddle and mess. The result is that £1·3 million has been lost irretrievably.
No doubt the bureaucrats are working a great deal of overtime to disguise the realities. No doubt they are busy putting a gloss on the accounts of the Belfast education and library board, on the accounts of the corporation and of the various grant-aided organisations. No doubt they will make a good job of it at the end of the day. No doubt when the summaries of accounts are published they will not reveal any nugatory expenditure. However, if the £2 million had been handed over to the democratically elected Belfast corporation it would have spent the money effectively and to the full benefit of Belfast citizens. Of course, it was not so handed over. Most of it was

given to the nominated boards and was lost.
Will the Ulster people be consulted about the future of the quangos? Apart from the 26 district councils that are largely responsible for refuse collection and recreation, the boards are nominated by Ministers. Will the Government now declare that they will abolish the quangos, or will they amalgamate them into a larger and worse quango? I sincerely hope that the Government will not take the latter course and call the result a third tier of local government. Of course, that is what the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and his Official Unionist Group would like to see established in the Province instead of a Stormont Parliament. That would not fool the long-suffering Ulster people.
A third tier of local government would merely be a talking shop with no power to legislate, to raise revenue or to determine large policy questions. Such a third tier of local government would do great political damage to Ulster and its people. It would hinder real political advance. After 10 years of Irish Republican terrorism and disastrous Whitehall interference in Ulster's daily affairs, I should have thought that we had come to the end of centuries of slavish dependence on the so-called wisdom of Westminster.
Turning to the question of transfer procedures, before the abolition of the 11-plus examination I received very few complaints from disappointed parents about transfers to grammar schools. Generally the results of the 11-plus examination were accepted by parents. They regarded it as a fair and reasonable test for their children, in the circumstances. Not so the temporary arrangements that have succeeded it. Originally the temporary arrangements were to last for two years only, but it looks as though they will remain with us to harass parents and confuse children for another few years yet.
Last year I sent a number of cases to the Parliamentary Ombudsman for Administration. It appeared to me that the system had been shown to be manifestly unfair to many children in Bangor and Newtownards and other areas in my constituency and, for all I know, in other constituencies throughout the Province. Had those children been resident in


Belfast, they would have obtained their first-choice schools without difficulty.

Mr. Gerard Fitt: It is terrible.

Mr. Kilfedder: Mr. Kilfedder Yes. It is terrible. The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) is trying to mock these children and parents.

Mr. Fitt: I am agreeing with the hon. Member.

Mr. Kilfedder: I am sorry. I am glad to hear that. I am used to hearing disagreement from the hon. Gentleman. I apologise to him for having misunderstood his remarks. I am glad that he agrees with me.
Parents have written to me with a variety of examples that show the great nonsense that is taking place at present. One parent told me that his daughter, with a grade Q, was refused admission to a grammar school, while another grammar school accepted pupils with grade R. Another must send his daughter to a secondary school three miles away, yet he lives only 500 yards from another secondary school. There is yet another example of confusion. A parent tells me that all pupils with grade R at his daughter's school, with the exception of his own daughter, have been given grammar school places. I realise that no system will please everyone, but for two years now we have had variations on a method of selection which have pleased nobody. I only hope that this system, which has caused dismay and concern to Ulster parents for too long, will now be changed by the Government.
I turn to the subject of roads, sewerage and water. If the Secretary of State is genuinely looking at Ulster, its dilapidated adminstration and the deadening bureacracy, I hope that he will examine the waste that is inseparable from the present system of roads, water, sewerage and housing. The four areas are interlocking and closely related to planning. Two of them—water supply and sewerage—are in the general area of public health.
District councils have an approving role in planning and an executive function in certain aspects of public health. If the Minister transferred to the district councils in Northern Ireland responsibility for

water and sewerage and the cleaning and maintenance of minor roads, he would have gone some way to restoring meaning and purpose to local government and local involvement and pride in our villages and towns.
What has been damaged most in Ulster, by 10 years of Irish Republican aggression and sectarian attack, is the growing trust between the two communities that was evidenced before 1968. The political decisions that have been taken by Westminster since then have wrought their own mischief and produced their own frustrations and discontents throughout the Province. Apathy has replaced interest and concern, and one meets with frustrations and bureaucratic sluggishness on every side.
I trust that the Government will immediately show that they want to put an end to bureaucracy and to restore democracy to the people in Northern Ireland, and not only to end the terrorism that has destroyed and is destroying so many lives but to give pride back to the people, and the ability to govern their own country.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: It would be quite impossible for me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, like the two speakers who have preceded me, not to refer, however briefly, to the circumstances in which the debate is taking place.
The necessity for this and the other two appropriation orders in the course of a year arises from the strict separation between the financial administration of the Province and that of the rest of the United Kingdom. I dare say that the experience of tonight will sharpen the mind of the Government and, indeed, of the House in general on the question whether these arrangements, which are, in part, of historical origin, are proper to be continued indefinitely. But the fact is that as long as they continue, these debates are essential and indispensable for the representation of the electorate of Northern Ireland.
They are for Northern Ireland the equivalent of the Consolidated Fund debates, which only to a minor extent relate to the Province, and of the Supply debates for the rest of the kingdom which take place throughout the year. They are the opportunity we have to follow up the


investigation of financial administration, which is performed in the first place by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee, and also to ventilate major subjects of concern in a context in which those subjects can be reasonably debated on the Floor of the House and replied to from the Government Front Bench.
Our difficulty in doing this tonight, commencing at 10 p.m., has been compounded by two events which I was going to say were unforeseen at the time when the announcement was made last Thursday. It may be that they were not entirely unforeseen by the Government; but they have certainly intensified the difficulties of the House and of those who intend to participate in the debate.
The first was the announcement this afternoon on British Shipbuilders and the almost accidental disclosure that there had been parallel announcement, by way of answer to a written question, on the future of Harland and Wolff. It is no fault of my hon. Friends and myself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the future of Harland and Wolff is not considered—as we always argued it ought to be considered—in the context of the shipbuilding industry of the United Kingdom as a whole. We would have been more than content if a statement had been made this afternoon on the Floor of the House—we could have participated in the questioning which followed it—covering the whole industry. But it was intolerable—and that the Government eventually recognised—that the application of the policy to Northern Ireland, where that industry is even more central than it is in England or Scotland, should be relegated to a written answer without opportunity of debate. So in the debate tonight we are to have a kind of opportunity, a kind of reference which can be made to the subject.
The other event was that there coincided with all this the long-awaited announcement of the Government's conclusions on the supply of energy in Northern Ireland, so that when that announcement has finally come we on the Ulster Unionist Bench, who not for months but for years have pressed for a statement and a conclusion, find ourselves obliged to comment briefly and with the shortest possible notice, upon pain of having had no other opportunity for

several months, upon a statement of profound importance for the energy economy of the Province.
My hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), when he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be referring to those conclusions and putting forward the views of my hon. Friends. We recognise that on this occasion the Government have attempted to make some amends by providing for an intervention by a Minister who will be able to deal with that subject. I think that that can be taken as a recognition on their part that this was no way to deal with this central debate affecting Northern Ireland.
These debates perform two functions. One is of continuing and continuous financial scrutiny, carried forward from one appropriation debate to another. The second is of isolating specific subjects. My hon. Friends and I have given the Government notice that we consider the whole topic of housing—the administration of the Housing Executive and the experience of its stewardship in Northern Ireland—to be more than ripe for discussion, and that we intend to make it, for our part, one of the principal subjects in the debate.
I am grateful to the Government for the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment is here to hear what is said on that topic and to sum up at the end of the debate. The subject is a wide one and I shall concentrate only on one sector, leaving others to be covered in due course by my hon. Friends. The sector to which I propose to refer contains four compartments. They are all closely interrelated and all cohere, namely, the maintenance of the Housing Executive's stock of houses; second, heating conversion; third, the improvement of the Housing Executive's stock of houses; and, fourth, the system of grants for repair and improvement of houses other than those owned by the Housing Executive.
I begin with maintenance. The Comptroller and Auditor General and the local government auditor had some sharp remarks to make on the administration of housing maintenance by the Housing Executive when the accounts for the year ending 1977 were presented in February and the accounts for the year ending 1978 were presented in July. That was a


rather curious telescoping or correption of financial control.
I shall trouble the House with one or two sentences from the first of those reports, which the then Under-Secretary of State responsible admitted in a written answer on 16 February naturally made him "concerned". The comments were as follows:
The audit of maintenance accounts … has … given cause for concern. Among many weaknesses in the controls exercised I "—
that is, the local government auditor—
would draw attention to the inadequate check of contractors' accounts by maintenance staff which, in many instances, occurs through a lack of knowledge of the terms and conditions of the employment of contractors, the non-observance of Standing Orders … and the failure which often occurs to complete the various forms necessary to maintain the system of control … I feel"—
he continued—
that the standard of efficiency in this Division would have been improved if, in response to previous audit criticisms, immediate action had been taken by the staff responsible.
We were glad to learn from the following report for the year ended March 1979 that some belated action was being taken upon this. But to read those words came as no surprise to hon. Members who are concerned, as constituency Members—I might say daily—with the work of maintenance in the Housing Executive. For amongst the volume of complaints which, in the absence of any local representation, it falls to us to handle, the condition of Housing Executive premises is one of the foremost.
My hon. Friends will bear me out when I say that the results of our inquiries and complaints follow a recognisable pattern. We communicate with the district manager, who, all attentiveness, indicates that he intends to get in touch with the maintenance manager. The maintenance manager then gets in touch with the contractor to find out what is going on. Back comes the alleged information from the contractor, through the maintenance manager, through the housing manager to the Member of Parliament. But we find that it does not tally with either our own observation or the information which is immediately relayed to us by the complainant when we pass on the supposed news. What has happened has been that the maintenance division has been out of

touch with the work of the contractor; and the contractor, more often than not, has failed to carry out satisfactorily or in time the work which had been allocated to him.
My conclusion from all this—I think that my hon. Friends and others who have practical experience in Northern Ireland will concur—is that two changes of a fairly drastic character are necessary. First, the responsibility for maintenance must not be divided. The maintenance of accommodation is a function of the ownership and management of housing. It is wrong that there should be a division of responsibility between those who manage and those who maintain the houses. It is not fair to the housing managers or to the tenants. It results only in wasted effort, delay, repairs long overdue, irritation, frustration and ill will on the part of the tenants.
The second reflection that I have to offer may not ideologically commend itself to hon. Members on the Government side, but I do not mind if they conclude that what I am about to suggest is related mainly or exclusively to conditions in Northern Ireland. I suggest that the use of contractors for much of the maintenance work that is required—at any rate, in the conditions that prevail in the Province—is inefficient and unsatisfactory and that the Housing Executive must take a closer grip and exercise greater control over the work of maintaining its own housing stock.

Mr. Stallard: Direct labour.

Mr. Powell: Certainly; if that is the name of it, so be it. We cannot regard the system in Northern Ireland as satisfactory. We put the Government and, through the Government, the Housing Executive on warning that something dramatic needs to be done to satisfy not unreasonable complaints but the reasonable expectation of what would be done by any owner of rented houses who had the opportunity in any part of the country.
I pass from maintenance to heating conversion. Ironically, heating conversion is going on in two opposite directions. On the one hand, there is a scheme in progress for converting all-electric heating—particularly of pensioners' houses—to solid fuel heating. On the other hand, there is a scheme going on for replacing unsatisfactory solid fuel heating with


systems which will be less unsatisfactory and more economic for the tenants. I shall attempt to explain briefly how this Scylla and Charybdis movement came about in the administration of the Housing Executive. I hope that the House will forgive me if I quote individual cases; but only individual cases bring into focus the nature of the mess into which the Housing Executive has got itself.
There was a period some years ago when all-electric heating was the fashion and was introduced into new dwellings, especially blocks, rows and closes of new dwellings intended for pensioners living on small incomes. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) is present, because he and I were together, so to speak, in the experience which led to the conversion scheme. There was a whole development at a place called Drumcloon Walk at Downpatrick, in my constituency, where pensioners found themselves, with the best will in the world, faced with fantastic bills or with having no heating at all, because an all-electric system, which was way beyond their means, however well controlled, had been installed in those houses.
In the end, thanks to the right hon. Gentleman, those pensioners were paid rebates for the excessive bills that they had incurred originally; but the upshot was that a decision of policy was taken that in housing of that kind there should be a scheme of gradual reconversion from all-electric heating to solid fuel heating, or at any rate to systems of heating which were within the means, and within the power to control, of the elderly people of limited means who were concerned.
That scheme has run into difficulties. Perhaps I can illustrate them by referring to an estate in my constituency which I happened to visit, appropriately enough, in dead mid-winter 1976–77, as a result of which visit I pressed upon the Housing Executive the desirability of that estate—at any rate, the pensioners' houses—being included in the scheme. I was not displeased when in the end I heard from the area manager in September last year as follows:
The first phase is now complete, i.e. we have identified the specific locations of the dwellings involved. The second phase is about to commence and will consist of the conversion of a small number of dwellings in each District Council area.
In the near future

—I stress "in the near future"—
I am optimistic that the full programme will be established and thus we will be in a position to advise tenants when work will be carried out.'
That is exactly as it ought to be. The scope of the problem was defined and a programme was set up to enable those who would have to wait to know at any rate how long they would have to wait for the conversion to which they were looking forward.
I am afraid that that is not how things worked out. There has been a complete stoppage in this scheme of conversion of all-electric houses. It is a part of the stoppage which has occurred in all these programmes in the Housing Executive, or between the Executive and the Department, in the past six or eight months. The existing position is that my hon. Friends and I, in good faith, upon the good faith of the managers of the Executive, have told tenants in various parts of our constituencies "It is all right. Your problem is understood. It will be dealt with. This estate has been put in the programme and we expect soon to be telling you when the work will start." Now we have to go back and explain to them "We are sorry. We were all deceived. The manager was deceived; we were deceived. There is no programme. The whole thing has gone back into the melting pot."
I am afraid that is a pattern which will be found to be repeated in the other aspects of housing upon which I now have to touch; for I come from conversion from all-electric heating to the catastrophe—I do not think that is too exaggerated a word—which was incurred by the installation in recent years of solid-fuel appliances in new or improved houses which proved entirely unsatisfactory.
Both the installation and, in many cases, the appliances were unsatisfactory. Here a son has written to me about the house in my constituency in which his mother lives:
on a recent visit to her house work had been carried out of fitting a new fire place. The work is carried out to such a very low standard and I even found that there are other friends who live in the same street who have had equally bad work done.
Where some of these fireplaces are thus ill fitted, the main living room is often unlivable for the tenants concerned.
That, however, is only the matter of fitting. There is also the question of the appliances themselves. These are primarily, if not exclusively, the Redfyre and the Rayburn. It is a Province-wide problem.
From Warrenpoint, constituents write:
Our complaint is the installation of highly inefficient fires in the houses. … We have checked with the Local Heating Engineer, and he has told us that Open Fire Heating, or the Gravity Feed Solid Fuel Boiler are much cheaper forms of heating than the present Redfyre system".
We move to another area—Rathdune Terrace, Downpatrick, where the installation was carried out two years ago. I am told by the housing manager that the heater is
efficient in producing hot water to the extent that in certain instances excess hot water has to be run off. It does not, however, provide sufficient hot water to heat radiators. On this basis I feel there may be some justifiable complaint from tenants.
There are indeed justifiable complaints coming from tenants all over the Province who have these installations. Here I have another from Kilkeel, from a new estate near the harbour—exactly the same complaints are made by tenants there.
The origin of these difficulties, or, at any rate, their persistence, appears to be as follows. The Housing Executive uses as its agent in the matter of the choice and installation of solid fuel heating appliances the Coal Advisory Service. Contrary to what the name may suggest, the Executive does not merely take advice from the Service: the Service is the agent for doing the work. But the Service, in turn, has the work done by contractors. So when the sort of catastrophe that I have been indicating to the House occurs, the Housing Executive comes upon the Coal Advisory Service, and the Service says "Oh dear, dear. We will have a look into it" and comes upon the contractor.
But of course the contractor has no interest in admitting or remedying the deficiencies of installation. Instead of the Housing Executive being in direct control of the matter and in the legal position to enforce the specifications that it thought it was getting and the standards of installation to which it is entitled, it is all the time attempting to get at contractors through the cushion or pillow of the Coal Advisory Service.
This will not do. The Housing Executive has to find some means of accepting direct responsibility. After all, it is the landlord, and these are the Housing Executive's tenants. The only way in which to proceed is a rapid survey to establish factually the whole extent of the mischief and then the setting up of an agreed scheme or timetable by which the appliances that have to be replaced or mended will be remedied. Only then will hon. Members be able to assure their constituents that, perhaps not immediately and perhaps not before next winter, but in a period of time which the hon. Members feel justified in accepting, constittuents can look forward to relief. So once again the same pattern is established.
Now I turn to the improvement of Housing Executive houses. Once upon a time it seemed that there was a rolling programme, going forward majestically perhaps but still recognisably going forward, for the modernisation of the older houses belonging to the Housing Executive. This applies particularly to the houses known as labourers' cottages, which are a striking feature of the landscape in Northern Ireland and, as a matter of fact, date in their origin from the immense effort in the improvement of rural housing made by the Conservative Administration in Ireland in the first years of this century. As one travels through Northern Ireland, one gets used to recognising, often deeply hidden in an improved and substantial dwelling, the original labourer's cottage with its standard pattern, probably 50, 60, 70 or 80 years old.
Clearly, these cottages have to be brought up to modern standards and provided with the basic amenities. A scheme for that purpose—a programme which enabled Members of Parliament to draw the attention of the Housing Executive to particular houses and obtain some indication when those might be dealt with—was going forward until nine months or so ago. Then everything went wrong. It turned out that the whole matter had gone back into the melting pot and was being considered de novo at headquarters.
I quote one paragraph from a letter that I have received on the subject.
As you are no doubt aware",


said the area administrative manager at Newry,
the hold up on improvements to dwellings has been a review of policy by the Department of the Environment. This review entails a survey of each individual dwelling on social and economical grounds, and each dwelling will be considered on its merits.
Now, what has happened in fact—and I think that the Under-Secretary of State will wish to know this if he does not know it already—is that, in effect, the rolling programme has been brought to a standstill. Promises which have been made, dates which have been given to tenants by hon. Members on the good faith of the managers of the Housing Executive, are sliding further and further into the past, and even when they have been replaced by later dates, those, too, have been disappointed.
In fact, the whole thing has been brought to a standstill. Of course, it has been brought to a standstill on money, on costs; but that really does not excuse the hold-up to which I have drawn attention here and in other respects. It is the business of an administration, within the available finance, to ensure that there is a logical and intelligible programme which can be understood and can be justified.
Naturally, one recognises that the full modernisation scheme has become increasingly expensive in real terms. So the big debate—and one understands that it is still going on—between the Housing Executive and the Department is: should there not be a standard B, as it were, a standard of improvement, which gives to these houses at any rate the basic minimum amenities, since otherwise many of the older tenants who live in them will live in them as they are until the end of their days?
I have in my mind as I speak a row of houses in a rather isolated position along a main road in my constituency—six pairs of semi-detached houses. A few months ago I was told by the tenant, when I happened to call at one of these houses, "There is one stand-pipe which is the sole supply of water to all those 12 houses". I must admit that I did not believe it; but it was true. That was the only water supply whatsoever for all those 12 houses—one outside stand-pipe.
So I wrote to the Housing Executive, not unnaturally, and said" I am sure this

is in a scheme. I am sure that there is a programme which covers this. This obviously must have high priority among the Executive's houses. Can you indicate to me, so that I can pass it on, and, indeed, so that I can bring pressure if necessary for it to be brought forward, whereabouts in the programme these houses stand?" In reply I was told that there is no programme which includes them. Indeed, for practical purposes there is no longer any programme, nor can there be until decisions have been taken at the top level as to what standards shall be worked to and what are the annual limits of finance available. Only then can the Executive proceed to fit these and other houses all over the Province into a timed programme.
Once again I say the Government have to see to it that, within whatever are the resources, the thing moves. It must move. It must move in a manner which is rational, predictable and capable of being explained to those who are concerned. People are not unreasonable unless they are treated unreasonably. Then they become unreasonable. I can well understand that many of my constituents, after a series of broken promises, are becoming very unreasonable indeed.
I add another cause which is at work in these delays. I give an example from a case at Donacloney, in my constituency. It concerns the modernisation of eight cottages. I read from the area manager's letter to me:
It had been the Executive's intention to improve these houses and the scheme was put into our improvement programme and a consultant architect was appointed. However, a major obstacle to progressing these proposals has arisen because of estimated costs by the Department of the Environment, Water Service, of providing sewerage facilities.
So now there is no progress whatsoever on that scheme.
Time after time I have discovered that the Housing Executive has gone ahead, building up a programme, while the water and sewerage facilities which are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment were in no way co-ordinated, and that promises and dates were being given to me dependent upon assumptions as to the completion of water and sewerage works which the Department of the Environment already knew had proved to be impractical and would have to be replaced by different plans.

Mr. Dalyell: I am overcome by curiosity. The right hon. Gentleman did say at the beginning of his speech that he thought that these matters ought to be discussed in the prime time of the House of Commons, from 4 o'clock onwards. Does he really think that the sewerage at Donacloney should be a matter for discussion at 4 o'clock in the House of Commons?

Mr. Powell: Yes, I do, because it is only in the light of these individual cases—and they take no longer to display through being named and labelled—that what is going wrong can be demonstrated to the Government and that they have the opportunity to see where things need to be put right. However, I shall put the hon. Member either out of his curiosity or his misery before long. I still have to deal, briefly, with the question of grants for repair and maintenance of houses not in the ownership of the Housing Executive.
Here again, everyone understands that there must be a financial limit, and a financial limit in annual terms. What one does not understand is why, in the processing of applications which flow in to the Housing Executive, there is apparently a total inability to explain to the applicant, at any rate unless the applicant's Member of Parliament intervenes, exactly in what respect, whether it be tiny and technical or large and conclusive, his scheme differs from what the Executive is prepared to authorise. The result of this is that the proportion of dissatisfied, frustrated and disgruntled applicants is unduly large in relation to the considerable amount of assisted repair and improvement work that is going on.
The Housing Executive—and that really means the Department of the Environment, because the Department controls all the essentials—has to be enabled to behave like a good, prudent and efficient landlord. Indeed, we have to cut our coat according to the cloth. But what we need is to see that it is a coat that is being cut, and to have the dimensions, the pattern and the style of that coat displayed to us, so that we in turn can perform our necessary function as intermediaries, as it were, between the Government and the subject and convince them—we must first convince ourselves—that what is so much amiss in the

administration of housing and the Housing Executive will be put right, and that what is unreasonable will be replaced by a system that is rational.

11.41 p.m.

Mr. Peter Robinson: This debate on the draft Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order is the first of its kind during my time in Parliament, and therefore it is my intention to avail myself of the opportunity that this debate presents to concentrate on problems affecting my constituency. Rt. hon. and hon. Members will agree that when money is being spent it is right that there should be an evaluation of the projects for which it has been or is being used. My hon. Friends and I have given notice that we intend to raise matters concerning housing, the gas and electricity undertakings, the shipbuilding industry and also matters related to agriculture. As far as possible, my comments will be broadly based on the topics of housing and shipbuilding.
Before dealing with those matters I join those who, in an orderly manner, have made their protest at the time at which this debate is taking place. However, having said that, it is worth placing on record the encouragement that we have received to see many hon. Members from other constituencies throughout the kingdom present on this occasion. We take that as evidence of the undeniable and long-prevailing fact that Northern Ireland is not only an integral but an important part of the United Kingdom.
I wish first, under Class II, to deal with employment in Northern Ireland, with particular reference to the Belfast shipyard. It is important to ascertain, as well as the expenditure of the Department of Commerce, the effect on the lives of our constituents of Government policy on these matters, particularly in the case of a new Administration.
The Department has a responsibility for creating employment in the Province and gives incentives to attract industry and encourage the expansion of existing firms. It is a difficult task given the attempts, often successful, of the Provisional IRA and others to subvert it in its task, but the Minister has a strong selling point when promoting the Province to industrialists, in that we have a ready and willing work force in Northern


Ireland. Yet the employment rate in Northern Ireland is tragically high and the scourge of unemployment, having the effect that it does on the lives of all our constituents, regardless of political alignment, is an evil that must be tackled sympathetically and decisively.
Those hon. Members who operate constituency surgeries on a regular basis will be aware, particularly at this time of the year, of the vast number of school leavers who have no, or at least little, chance of finding employment. For them, it is the prospect of supplementary benefit rather than a pay packet. I believe that hon. Members will agree that it is a great loss to our community that so many young people should be left in this situation.
It was with no small amount of nervous caution that Northern Ireland Members, aware of the Government's intention to cut back in Northern Ireland, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, awaited information on the extent and the possible effect of those cuts. Workers in the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff have been speculating for some time on the future of the yard. In an area of East Belfast that falls under the shadow of a large crane called Goliath, the longer shadow of the Minister's axe has loomed. It has caused much concern and anxiety.
Several previous attempts to obtain information from the Minister have received the usual and traditional Civil Service reply, which gives away little information. Hon. Members will be aware, however, of the written reply from the Minister to my question today. While the reply is longer and more verbose, it is no less vague. I join with the Opposition spokesman in asking the Minister to give more information and to provide more enlightenment on the future and prosperity of the Belfast shipyard. In this evening's Belfast Telegraph it is stated that the Harland and Wolff work force will be slimmed down from its current total of 8,200. The correspondent adds that he understands that the Government believe that the work force should fall to about 5,500.
I would be the last person to produce the Belfast Telegraph as an authoritative source, but I would like to hear the Minister's views. The House is aware of the increasing crisis in world shipbuild-

ing and the keenness of international competition, but the House should equally be aware of the importance of shipbuilding in Northern Ireland. It employs about 5 per cent of the people engaged in manufacturing. Shipbuilding also probably creates about another 1,500 manufacturing jobs directly and many thousands of jobs indirectly.
When one considers that Harland and Wolff itself employs about 8,000 people, mostly from my constituency, and that even in the good years of the 1960s the Department of Commerce succeeded only in bringing about 7,000 new jobs to Northern Ireland, one sees the importance of maintaining jobs in the shipyard. Against the background of the high unemployment level in Northern Ireland as a whole, it becomes an absolute necessity.
I ask again that the Minister should expand on the written reply that I received today and give his views on the long-term future of the shipyard. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will also say what he believes is the success, or otherwise, of the diversification within Harland and Wolff, and whether it has eased the problem. Like him, I firmly believe that, given the encouragement and support of the new Administration, Harland and Wolff and its work force can weather the shipbuilding storm. I only hope that it is given the opportunity.
Under Class V, dealing with the expenditure of the Department of the Environment on housing services, I wish to raise some matters of great concern to my constituents. Hon. Members from Northern Ireland are probably kept in touch with housing circumstances in their constituencies better than most hon. Members throughout the United Kingdom. This has come about as a result of the loss of our devolved Parliament and the sorry state of local government in our Province.
Recently, I heard a right hon. Member from outside Northern Ireland explain or perhaps boast to a television interviewer that he had dealt with about 1,100 complaints from his constituents in the past year entailing about 5,000 letters per annum being written. In the few months that I have been in this House, I have dealt with a good deal more than the right hon. Member's annual amount. I am sure that other hon. Members from Northern Ireland, who have much the same work load, will agree that probably


the largest percentage of their constituency work—possibly 80 per cent. or 90 per cent.—concerns housing and the disgraceful repair and maintenance record of the Housing Executive.
In Northern Ireland, the depth of knowledge that we have about the day-to-day running of the Housing Executive is born out of first-hand experience, and often it is a very sad experience. To say that the repair and maintenance system of the Executive is deplorable is perhaps too simplistic. It understates the case. However, the brief time available to us this evening does not permit me to deal with this subject as fully as I should like.
The system has failed. Even the Executive's staff complain that when they ask for an increase in staff for maintenance purposes it is often, if not always, rejected, whereas if they ask for a stall increase for administration purposes their request meets with ready assent. But that only increases the bungling bureaucracy that the Housing Executive has become.

Mr. Dalyell: Are the staff of the Housing Executive mostly people who are native to Ulster, or do they come from elsewhere?

Mr. Robinson: The Housing Executive staff are mainly from Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, the people who are responsible for guiding the Housing Executive come from outside the Province. But it is not primarily the subject of maintenance that I wish to deal with, because that is a subject—

Mr. Dalyell: Hon. Members from other parts of the United Kingdom are entitled to ask questions. Against whom is the complaint? Is it against the staff, or the people who guide the Housing Executive?

Mr. Robinson: Other hon. Members have made it clear already that the complaint is against the system at present operating, under which the staff have to carry out their orders. It is the system that is wrong, and certainly not the Northern Ireland work force.
No doubt the subject of housing maintenance will be raised on another occasion, but I hope that the Minister will attempt to make time available so that the in-depth inquiry into the Housing Executive that this House and the people

of Northern Ireland require urgently may take place.
In the time aavilable to me, I shall deal with some specified topics on the housing front. The first of these concerns a project in my constituency known as RDA24. It is the lower Newtownards Road area of East Belfast. Following a public inquiry, it was decided that over 400 houses would be built and that the scheme would include a shopping complex. The development was originally to be carried out in six phases, but this was changed to four. However, the phases have been taken out of sequence, so that what is now the fourth phase, primarily for family housing, has not yet taken place.
There is concern within the area that it may not take place at all because of the Government's cuts. If it did not, not only would much-needed houses not be provided; the community would be out of balance. The family houses would bring in the young people who would complete the cycle. Can the Minister tell me that my constituents' fears are unfounded? The work has come to a standstill, so there is at least circumstantial evidence for their opinion.
The second project is also a redevelopment area, known as RDA23, in the Memel Street area of Belfast, a small housing area which straddles the River Lagan. The Department of the Environment gave local residents a written undertaking that it would build about 100 dwellings in the area, but there are only 40 in the phase just completed. The Department has now said that, depending on demand, a small final phase of eight dwellings may be constructed. There is no doubt about the demand for homes in the area. I have had enough inquiries myself to fill another 60 dwellings. I ask the Minister to consider this matter seriously and restore the faith of these people in his Department.
The third project is the Tower Street area between Short Strand and Temple-more Avenue. This consists largely of blocked-up houses, which are rapidly going into decline. The more blocked-up houses there are, the more people are forced to move out, and the more houses have to be blocked up. The housing action area report for the area has been
considered by the Housing Executive and the residents are still awaiting the result,


carry out Government policy. It would
The preliminary phase of rehabilitation was promised after the former Minister accepted my invitation to tour the area in the summer of 1978. We were then promised that that phase would start in November of last year. When the Executive failed to meet that undertaking, I wrote to its regional works manager, who said that it was then hoped to start the work in April. The work has yet to start.
Behind the cold facts of those three projects lies much anguish and hardship.
According to the Department's records and its discussion document, one-third of the houses in the inner East Belfast area are unfit for habitation. I hope that the new Administration will pick up the gauntlet thrown down by years of neglect and tackle the problem in a meaningful and realistic way.
It would be a tragedy if cutbacks were made when so much misery is being caused. Savings can be made within the housing service. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said that a close scrutiny of the Housing Executive could result in savings.
The Rowland report, which cost £250,000 to produce, is an indictment of any Department or quango. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) wishes to deal with that report, so I shall not go into detail. However, I am sure that the previous Government could have found a cheaper whitewashing product than the Rowland report to cover up the disasters in the Housing Executive.

Mr. John: Is the hon. Member saying that the Rowland report was deliberately manufactured to cover up and not to give a fair and accurate report of the evidence that was given, or is that another misunderstanding?

Mr. Robinson: Before the Rowland report was written, we made it clear that if a proper report was to be produced it would be necessary for evidence to be sworn, papers produced and Ministers called. That did not occur, and the result was as expected—a cover-up.
I hope that the Minister will refer to the sale of public housing stock. There has been much talk in the Province about the ability of the Housing Executive to

be useful for the Minister to explain the time scale involved in Government policy being carried out.
I have evidence that contracts for Northern Ireland Government architectural work is being carried out in Dublin under the cover of addresses of firms in Northern Ireland. The Minister will agree that in view of the unemployment level in Northern Ireland it is important that Government work be carried out, where possible—and in this case it is possible—by firms in Northern Ireland. What stipulation is made to firms carrying out Government work particularly for Government Departments such as the Housing Executive? What safeguards are built into the system?
Class VI(2) deals with expenditure by the Department of the Environment on planning services. Will the Minister speed up the publication of an inquiry held early last December on the application of the Northern Ireland Police Authority to develop land at Upper Galwally as a sub-divisional police headquarters? That application involves implications for the surrounding area. The delay is causing concern to the local council and residents in my constituency and in the constituency of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford).
The manner in which the officials of the Department acted during the public inquiry has caused severe strain in relations between the Minister's planning department and the Castlereagh borough council. His officials acted in an adversarial role, asking questions and giving advice as to security matters instead of confining themselves to being of assistance to the inquiry on planning considerations. I believe that that episode can best be forgotten after the findings of the inquiry have been published. In a written answer at the beginning of June, the Minister told me that an early decision on the application was expected. I ask him now whether he can help me on this matter.
Local government in Northern Ireland has accepted that cuts will be made in its expenditure, and particularly, it is felt, in relation to grants from the Department of Education for new recreation and community services projects. When cuts are being made, will the Minister pay special regard to those district councils which have been less demanding in the past and


allow the criterion of need rather than greed to apply?
It appears to me and, I am sure, to many hon. Members that there are areas where the need is less yet the provision is greater. Local government areas such as that which I, in another capacity, represent seem in some respects to be lagging behind.
In speaking in this debate, I have obviously fallen victim to the desire, shared, I am sure, by all new Members, to raise as many general issues as possible and have them recorded, especially in so far as they concern my constituency. I hope that during similar debates in the future I shall be able to follow up the matters which I have outlined, and perhaps in that way they can best be developed.

12.7 a.m.

Mr. Gerard Fitt: In his closing remarks the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) seemed to apologise for raising certain matters in the House tonight. I assure him that it is not necessary to apologise, because under the present political arrangements between this part of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland this is the only forum that we have. Although some people may not like the fact that we discuss places with strange names in various parts of Northern Ireland, or refer to places such as Turf Lodge, the Divis tower, or Springmartin, in the city of Belfast, these are all areas where there are deep problems affecting the everyday lives of the people living there. It is certainly with no apology that I raise these matters tonight on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is it not the case also that when there are debates on English housing or Scottish housing, hon. Members raise local matters and detailed schemes affecting their constituents? I was surprised, therefore, that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) should be astonished at some of the subjects being raised and which we should prefer to raise at a more convenient time. There is nothing different in this debate, I believe, from debates pertaining to similar matters in other parts of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Fitt: I agree with with what the hon. Gentleman says. I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) raised the question of Donacloney in any malicious way.
Earlier today we made representations, which unfortunately were not accepted, that the debate on our appropriation order should take place at a time when most hon. Members could be available if they desired. The hon. Member for Belfast, East said that he was pleased at the number of hon. Members present during this debate. There are about 25 hon. Members in the Chamber but there are 630 hon. Members in this place. That is a reflection of the degree of interest in Northern Ireland matters. There seems to be a feeling that Northern Ireland is a troublesome spot within the United Kingdom, that there are all sorts of things happening there that should not be taking place, and that the less that is seen or heard of it the better.
It is only two months since we had a general election. A number of new faces were elected to the House. Many of them have no knowledge of what has been taking place in Northern Ireland, what is taking place and what will take place. I hoped that they would avail themselves of the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the problems of Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland has been a problem since the moment of its inception in 1920. It has been an especial problem since 1968, the beginning of the civil rights movement. Even more particularly, it has been a problem since the Government of the day assumed direct responsibility for the administration of the Six Counties in 1972.
Anyone who has listened to the debate will be driven to the conclusion that Northern Ireland is a unique place with unique representatives. Anyone who listened to the radio and television over the weekend will have been driven to that conclusion. We have heard the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder), who has consistently sat on the Tory side of the House and consistently voted with Tory Governments. On most occasions, if not all, he has been supported by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), whom we have also heard. They have voted against public expenditure. In Division after Division in the previous


Paraliament, that was the attitude taken by the hon. Member for Down, North.
It is interesting that today the hon. Gentleman is criticising the cuts that have been made by the newly elected Conservative Government. He knew very well what he was voting for in the previous Parliament. He knows very well where he is sitting now. I do not want to cast myself in the role of public defender of the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), who voted for the retention of the Labour Government in the vote of confidence on 28 March, but he was condemned by the hon. Gentleman for supporting the then Government, as was the then Member for Belfast, North, Mr. Carson. The hon. Members for Armagh and Belfast, North reasoned that they had more faith in a Socialist Administration doing more for Ulster, especially in terms of energy, than in a Conservative Government.
Yesterday afternoon the right hon. Member for Down, South said that since the timing and the procedures for the debate were announced on
Thursday by the Leader of the House two significant events have taken place. The right hon. Gentleman referred to two written answers that appeared today, one on the future of the Belfast shipyard and the other on the prospects of a gas pipeline to Northern Ireland.
I found the answers sinister. I know that the Belfast shipyard has always been controversial in political and industrial terms. There are many who say that for many years it has not been a viable economic project. There are others who say that only certain people get jobs in the yard because of their political or religious persuasions. There are those in the area that I represent who have said to me throughout many years "Why do you speak in support of the Belfast shipyard when not too many of your constituents work there?" That has been said with a great deal of feeling and sincerity.
Employment in Northern Ireland is all-important, no matter what the religious qualifications or the religious or political outlook of anyone employed in its industries. That was one reason why I supported the previous Labour Government in putting the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act on the statute book. That

ensured that people would not be discriminated against on the ground of religion when seeking employment.
Before the conclusion of this debate the Minister of State must be more honest about his intentions for the Belfast shipyard. Page 2 of the written question says:
I feel confident that it should be possible, given an all-out effort by all concerned, to achieve improved efficiency and enable the yard to remain in operation.
Those words lead one to suspect that the yard is in danger of closing. If events have come to such a pass in Northern Ireland that there must be a substantial reduction in the labour force in the Belfast shipyard—we have heard the figures of 2,000 to 3,000—those workers should be told, so that they may then find work in some other industry, whether in Belfast or further afield.

Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: The hon. Gentleman quoted part of the written answer given to him today. In all fairness, should he not also quote the earlier part of that answer, in which my hon. Friend pointed out that new orders could not be won unless delivery dates could be met? He was concerned to learn that the production targets of Harland and Wolff had recently been missed and that for a variety of reasons productivity generally had been slipping. Does that not have a good deal to do with the future of the yard? Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that it is British taxpayers' money that must sustain this operation?

Mr. Fitt: Yes. I accept what the hon. Gentleman said. Indeed I had every intention of referring to what happened, in the industrial relations sense, in the yard. I refer to a further paragraph of the answer:
Some further decline in the shipbuilding work force is inevitable.
What is meant by the words "some further decline"? Do they mean 3,000, 2,000, or 1,000?
In the city of Belfast, especially in East Belfast, the shipyard is more than an industrial concern. It is the linchpin on which every other facet of life depends. If it were to close, it would be calamitous for the morale of the workers in that industry and for that of the whole city of Belfast. A shipyard that has had such


a proud history in peacetime and in wartime should be given every assistance to remain in operation.
In the lifetime of the previous Labour Government I had many discussions with the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon). I led many deputations to him about industries that seemed to be in danger of collapsing overnight. The Minister went out of his way to go into every facet of the representations that we made. He took decisions that I am sure were contrary to the advice given to him by civil servants on industries in my area, West Belfast, which had been shaved off by the Government.
It was not the last Labour Government that finally closed down Peter Pan bakery; that decision was taken by the present Minister of State. Given all the circumstances pertaining to that bakery, I recognise that it may have been inevitable that my right hon. Friend had to take that decision, but I know that in the dying weeks of the last Government he went out of his way to give that bakery £50,000 in selective employment premiums to keep it in operation. Had there been the re-election of a Labour Government, I am quite certain that the same hard-nosed decision would have been taken in relation to that industry.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: Would it not be better if we put the record absolutely straight on this? To what extent does my hon. Friend think that it was the Conservative Minister who was responsible for the closure of the bakery and to what extent was it the bakery employers carving up the market among themselves and getting rid of what they could?

Mr. Fitt: I freely accept that much of the movement behind the scenes was not made public. The other major bakeries in the city of Belfast had offered money—and, indeed, paid money—to Peter Pan bakery to go out of existence. This is the free enterprise Tory approach—the survival of the fittest, the survival of the big combines, the survival of those big bakeries that were able to keep their price at such a level, in the full knowledge that this long-established industry in Belfast would not be allowed to stay in operation. I quite accept it.
Indeed, at the moment there are people in the bakery industry in Northern Ireland who believe that the present Government have welshed on a promise of financial assistance that was given by my right hon. Friend, and that when the Conservative Administration took over they said that whatever commitment was given by the previous Government had no binding effect on the new Administration.
The Minister involved in those negotiations and discussions should, before the conclusion of the debate, tell us what were the facts of the closure of the bakery. The closure involved the loss of over 300 jobs. In an area such as West Belfast, where there are over 20 per cent. unemployed, the loss of over 300 jobs can be more devastating than if it takes place in an area where the percentage figure of unemployment is not so high.
There has been mention of Antrim Crystal, with the loss of 120 or 160 jobs. The Tories' doctrinaire approach, since the election of the Government, has been that they were elected on a manifesto. People voted for this, for that and for the other thing. They voted for a reduction in income tax and for cuts in public expenditure; therefore they were supporting the Tory manifesto. I have absolutely no doubt that there was not one vote cast in Northern Ireland—whether it be from a Loyalist, a Unionist, a Republican or a Nationalist—to elect a Tory Government that would be so vicious in its implementation of policy.
I do not believe that the Government can apply to Northern Ireland the standards that they apply to the other parts of the United Kingdom. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian will say that I am asking for preferential treatment. I quite accept that I am asking for preferential treatment, and I make no apology for it. I have been doing it since 1966, and those before me in this House were doing exactly the same.

Mr. Dalyell: I should like to hear a justification why, at this stage, Harland and Wolff, with its problems, should be given preference over Upper Clyde, Lower Clyde, the Tyne, the Wear, and Cammell Laird, not to mention yards such as Robb Caledon.

Mr. Fitt: It is quite right that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian


should demonstrate the attitude he has. It is right that the people of Northern Ireland should know that they cannot depend for ever and a day on the generosity of other parts of the United Kingdom. I know that, but I want to see it on the record. Certain people in Northern Ireland believe that whatever Government are in power in the United Kingdom, they will never let us down and will always treat us more favourably than the other parts of the United Kingdom. That is one of the reasons for the lack of political progress in Northern Ireland.
I do not want to go into the political implications of all this in Northern Ireland. We shall have an opportunity later to debate that. But, on the economics of the situation, Northern Ireland is unique. Unemployment in my constituency is higher than in any other part of the United Kingdom. That did not happen last week, last month or last year. It has been so for the past 20 years. Why is there no industry in West Belfast? One might say that there are political reasons. Successive Governments have not been terribly concerned about attracting industry to West Belfast. Industry has certainly been attracted to other parts of the Six Counties, but again some people would say that we cannot force industrialists to set up in any given constituency.
It is right, however, that a constituency representative should put forward the case for his constituency. In the past I have not been able to see any light at the end of the tunnel—even under a Labour Government—in terms of reducing the level of unemployment in my constituency. Looking into a crystal ball under the present Government I can see no hope of any improvement.
The hon. Member for Down, North spoke of the absence of local government in Northern Ireland. He seemed to be condemning the Government on that score. I part company with him on that. It is not the fault of the Conservatives now, or Labour when they were in power, that local government is in its present state in Northern Ireland today. It is in that state because of what happened before 1968, because of the malpractices which took place at local authority level. Local government lost its powers in 1972 and 1973. I would not advocate the return of any important functions to local

authorities as they are at present constituted.
However, in the absence of local government in Northern Ireland we have only this House to which to bring our troubles. Last year this House passed a Private Member's Bill which bore my name and which was entitled the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Northern Ireland) Act. It extended to Northern Ireland the 1970 Great Britain Act of the same name as it applied to other parts of the United Kingdom. That Act was designed to improve the lot of disabled people in Northern Ireland, to enable local authorities and the Housing Executive to install improvements in the homes of disabled people who were unable to get around. When that measure went on to the statute book, hundreds, if not thousands, of people approached me and I began to enter into correspondence with the Northern Ireland Office and the Housing Executive about the installation of lifts and other improvements.
On 30 January this year I rang the Department of the Environment and told the private secretary that I had been approached by a Mr. Robinson, an invalid, who asked whether it would be possible to have a miniature lift installed in his home, and I was told that the matter would be looked into.
On 9 July—last week—I received a letter from the private office saying:
Dear Mr. Fitt,
You telephoned Stormont Castle on 30 January 1979 about a delay in providing a lift for a Mr. W. Robinson, 36 Duncairn Parade, Belfast 15. I am very sorry it has taken so long to let you have a full reply, but our inquiries are now almost complete.
That has taken six months. It should not take six months to find the answer to such a question. That is one of the reasons for the criticisms of direct rule as we know it in Northern Ireland. The Minister should take note of the delays in replying to representations made by elected representatives.
I understand that Official Ulster Unionist Members have agreed with the Government to have a debate on the Housing Executive tonight. I should like to supplement any criticisms they have made or may make. At the outset, I should say that I was partly responsible, through representations that I made, for the setting up of the Northern Ireland Housing


Executive. I made sincere and honest representations to the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, that housing functions should be taken out of the hands of local authorities in Northern Ireland because of the way that those functions had been abused. That was a political decision taken by my right hon. Friend. But the Housing Executive in the city of Belfast—the only place of which I can speak with any great knowledge—has not fulfilled or lived up to the expectations that we had at that time.
The Housing Executive has been criticised by hon. Members representing Unionist and Democratic Unionist viewpoints. They have criticised it because they believe that it came into being for political reasons. It did. But I suggest that not one of the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland would again want to assume responsibility for housing functions.
My criticisms of the Housing Executive find complete unanimity among all Northern Ireland representatives. Its maintenance programme has been absolutely disastrous. It seems to have many staff, but no one knows what they do. When one tries to ring them—I try every morning when I am in Belfast—one finds that the lines are engaged, that the person one wants is on a day's leave, has gone to a seminar or is at a meeting at headquarters. That goes on and on.
The last Government introduced a public relations liaison officer, and we have been instructed to write to him with any cases that we have. We write to him about the repair of a house. He writes to the district manager, and the district manager writes to the contractor. It takes a month before one receives a reply. In the meantime, some of our frustrated constituents are blaming us for the frustrations brought about by the Housing Executive.

Mr. Dalyell: I ask my hon. Friend the same question I asked a previous speaker. Whose fault is all this?

Mr. Fitt: If I knew, I should have no hesitation in saying on the Floor of the House. Nobody knows. Nobody in the Housing Executive knows. I have met officials employed by the Executive, formerly employed by the Belfast corpora-

tion, who say "We do not know why all this is happening". The Executive has got so big, with so many offices, so many telephones and so many people, that one office does not know what the other office is doing.
All I know is that in the city of Belfast, and in particular in my constituency, there are the most poorly housed people in Europe, including Eastern Europe. We have had inquiry after inquiry. There are people living in bad conditions in blocks of flats at Turf Lodge and Ballymurphy. Such names may seem very strange when they are mentioned on the Floor of this august House. Hon. Members may not be terribly concerned about where Ballymurphy, Spring Martin, Ballysillan or Divis tower is. But there are hundreds of thousands of people living there in appalling conditions. They expect me, as their representative, to make their frustrations known on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Dalyell: How does my hon. Friend reply to some of us who think that the English, the Scots and the Welsh are not very good at dealing with these problems, that they must be settled by the people in Northern Ireland themselves, and that no one else can do it?

Mr. Fitt: I am delighted by my hon. Friend's interventions. They highlight the sense of frustration which has been felt by other United Kingdom Members at what would seem to be the continual litany of complaints that emanate from Northern Ireland.
I find myself with a strange bedfellow. The right hon. Member for Down, South asked for the setting up of a direct labour organisation within the Housing Executive, so that it could do its own repairs without having to have recourse to private contractors. That would be contrary to the whole doctrinaire Tory philosophy that he formerly held. Perhaps it is because of his years of experience in Northern Ireland that the right hon. Gentleman is now prepared to concede that English solutions are not good for Irish problems.

Mr. Harold McCusker: Will not the hon. Gentleman come clean with his hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and tell him that the real answer is what was said earlier,


that the Housing Executive was not set up to administer housing properly or to build or maintain houses, but was set up for doctrinaire, political reasons? The structure has failed, and the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) is scared to accept that it has failed. Housing in Northern Ireland will work only when it is once again the responsibility of elected representatives who must face people regularly to be elected.

Mr. Fitt: That intervention will show the passions that run riot in Northern Ireland over the Housing Executive. I freely admit that it was set up to take on the functions that formerly belonged to the local authorities, because of the way in which the Unionist Party—the party to which the hon. Gentleman belongs—maladministered housing. I am not venturing into the argument about the political reasons. I say that as a housing organisation in the city of Belfast the Executive has not carried out its functions.
Two or three months ago I received a telephone call from the political correspondent of the BBC in Belfast asking for my reaction to the Housing Executive's decision to sell 54,000 of its houses. I said that I did not know anything about it. I talked to other elected representatives and discovered that they also knew nothing about it. That is not the right way to treat public representatives.
This is the first opportunity since then that we have had to debate these matters on the Floor of the House. I am sure that the Minister responsible for administering the Housing Executive will recognise that the Conservatives' promise to sell council houses won few votes in Northern Ireland. It may have caused some electors to vote for the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland but the numbers must have been few, as is shown by the UPNI's lost deposits.
Housing conditions in West Belfast are appalling. It is a sectarian ghetto. In 1968 and 1969 thousands of Catholics were intimidated out of other parts of Belfast and they went to West Belfast for safety. That aggravated the housing problem. Many families are living with relatives in my constituency. They all need rehousing and they are frightened to go to other parts of Belfast. They want to be rehoused within the safe boundaries of West Belfast.
If the Government continue their policy of selling Housing Executive houses, those on the waiting list in my constituency will never get rehoused in West Belfast. The Government must have looked at the facts of housing in Belfast, but they said on taking office that not just 54,000 but the whole Housing Executive stock of 196,000 houses would be up for grabs for those who could afford to buy. Surely Ministers realise that they cannot do that in Northern Ireland—and certainly not in Belfast.
My constituency is bulging at the seams. There has been strenuous opposition from Unionist and the Democratic Unionist representatives to the previous Government's proposal to build a new estate at Poleglass—another strange name, which the Hansard reporters will ask me to spell for them. All branches of Loyalism oppose the building of that estate. The leaders of the Official Unionists and the Democratic Unionists are against it.
That estate must be built, otherwise there will be no movement out of West Belfast. I advise the Minister in charge of housing not to go further along the road of offering houses for sale.
Architects have reported to the Housing Executive that the flats at Turf Lodge should never have been built. The sewerage and the structures were wrong and it is no good trying to repair them. The architects say that they should be pulled down. The people living in those flats know what was in the report. Will the Under-Secretary of State accept its findings? Will he agree to pull down those flats in Turf Lodge and the other blocks of derelict flats in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Dalyell: I have the recollection that, in the company of the late Jack Mendelson, I was taken round the constituency of Mr. John Carson, then the Member for Belfast, North, and shown the housing conditions of some of his Protestant constituents the like of which Mr. Mendelson had not seen in Sheffield and I had not seen in central Scotland, so it is both sides of the coin.

Mr. Fitt: I certainly do not want to make a religious issue out of this matter, but whatever conditions my hon. Friend saw in North Belfast are far exceeded by


the conditions in West Belfast. I am only sorry that I was not with my hon. Friend and Jack Mendelson at that time so that I could have availed myself of the opportunity of taking them around the districts of West Belfast that I have mentioned.
If any Ministers have seen those flats for themselves, or have read about the conditions, I am certain that they will agree with what I have said. But, certainly for people who are not of my religious conviction or political persuasion, homes are more readily available in Belfast—although, perhaps, not in West Belfast. I know many estates in North Belfast. For example, there is the estate at the ton of Cliftonville Road. In 1968, 1969 and 1970, there was a 50–50 population there on those small council housing estates. Then the intimidation began: machine guns were fired through the windows, petrol bombs were thrown into the homes, and no Catholics are living there now. They all left and went to West Belfast.
What is the criterion for selling council homes? It is where the need has been met. The need has been met in North Belfast for one section—people who are of a Loyalist political frame of mind. It has not been met for people of a non-Loyalist frame of mind. How does the Minister contend with that situation? The criticisms that I have made of the Housing Executive are genuine.

Mr. McCusker: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that all the areas of bad housing he has mentioned are post-war estates? If all that post-war housing is defective, as he claims, what chance is there of meeting the housing need in his area?

Mr. Fitt: It is post-war housing, as the hon. Gentleman said. But one must ask not the year in which the places were built but who built them, what was the cost, whether they were jerry-built, and whether they were thrown up overnight. Certainly there are such estates, because there was a serious housing shortage. I am not certain how the contractors got the contracts or the reason for it. I am referring specifically to blocks of flats, not to houses in particular. The hon.

Gentleman will have seen the report that I have referred to.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) about the story in Ulster Commentary that Northern Ireland was cushioned against the public expenditure cuts. It was not. Not too many people read that paper; they have better papers to read than the parcel of lies sometimes contained in Ulster Commentary, and that story was the biggest lie I have ever read in it.
The Minister tried to tell us that the cutting off of the selective employment premium had not had any effect. It has that effect. We have been told that 10,000 jobs depended upon the payment of selective employment premium. I am certain that at least 2,000 to 3,000 have been affected. It would have been better to keep the premium in operation because once these people lose their jobs they become redundant and then have recourse to the social services. The Government are not making any big savings by their doctrinaire approach to the problems of Northern Ireland.
The hon. Member for Down, North referred to the problems which arise in education. I have always thought it unsatisfactory that the education portfolio should be held by someone in another place. Education is of extreme importance in Northern Ireland. The selection procedure there has caused untold hardship and distress to parents. It is known in Northern Ireland as the FORS system. It has reached the stage where civil servants in the Department of Education in Northern Ireland are telling principals in schools that they have marked certain pupils too highly and that the civil servants do not think that the pupils should have such marks. That has happened time and again. One wonders what qualifications such civil servants have for telling principals this when the principals are in daily contact with the pupil involved.
It seems that because there are only so many grammar school places in Northern Ireland, if the number of pupils who qualify exceed the number of places the excess is told that it is stupid.

Mr. Dalyell: What rank of civil servant actually told a headmaster that he should give more or less marks to a pupil? The hon. Gentleman has to be


more specific. If he makes allegations like this, I hope that he can support them.

Mr. Fitt: If my hon. Friend will let his blood pressure cool down, I shall be happy to tell him. I have sent details of at least 50 cases to Lord Elton, with notes from the headmasters telling Lord Elton that he does not know what he is talking about. I have letters from the Department of Education saying "Yes, the principal of the school said that, but we do not accept his findings." I am in the process of taking those cases to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. Two of the cases come from the constituency of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford). Hundreds of people in this PQRS dilemma have been told that, no matter what the schoolmaster says, the Department of Education does not accept it.
I had a case of twins who were given the same marks. They wanted to go to the same grammar school but the Department said that they should go to different, and distant, grammar schools. How ridiculous. After I made representations to the Department, it said that it had re-examined the case and the twins could go to the same school. There should not have to be such representations.
I recall the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Northern Ireland) Act that went through the House last year. That measure had the support of everyone in Northern Ireland. We all expected great things from it. We expected that many telephones would be installed to assist disabled persons. We thought that the local authorities, and the Housing Executive in particular, armed with this measure, would show some enthusiasm to try to meet the needs of disabled people in Northern Ireland. We all felt very good when that measure went on to the statute book, but it has not had the effect that we intended.
I recognise that we are running into the early hours of the morning, but there are many more things that one could say.
Class II deals with grants to the tourist industry to attract tourists to Northern Ireland. We have all recognised, over many years, how important the tourist industry is to Northern Ireland, particularly at a time of economic stress, and

the savage cuts imposed by the Conservative Government make it all the more important that we rely upon this industry.
The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) is now putting out his own exclusion orders on certain persons who say that they would like to visit Northern Ireland. One wonders whether the hon. Gentleman is speaking for himself or whether he has had consultations with the Government. We have present tonight Ministers who are directly involved with Northern Ireland, and I believe that this question should be answered. Have any representations been made by the hon. Member for Antrim, North to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on what we have heard during the last couple of days and today on television, namely, that the hon. Gentleman is to take the law into his own hands and prevent the Pope from visiting Northern Ireland if he so desires?
I do not believe that the hon. Member for Antrim, North is speaking with the full-hearted consent of a significant section of the British people, particularly when one recalls that Her Majesty the Queen and other members of the Royal Family have been to Rome to meet the Pope. I do not believe that in this year of 1979 the hon. Gentleman should be allowed to dictate to the Government who should and who should not be allowed into what people refer to as that part of the United Kingdom.
I hope that whichever Minister replies to the debate—I trust that it will be the Secretary of State—he will say that the opinions of the hon. Member for Antrim, North about this visit are his own and are not supported by the Government.

Rev, Ian Paisley: Does the hon. Gentleman remember when he tried to pass an exclusion order on Her Majesty the Queen and said that she should not visit Northern Ireland? Does he remember that? Does he not know that if the Pope wants to come to any part of the United Kingdom he should follow protocol and apply to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to do so, and that the Pope cannot he smuggled over the border by Cardinal O'Fiaich or Jack Lynch?

Mr. Fitt: I leave it to the House to judge the intemperate remarks of the hon. Gentleman. I never said anything about


the Queen. I did not meet the Queen when she visited Belfast, and there is no guarantee that I shall meet the Pope. When the hon. Gentleman went on what he called a pastoral visit to County Monaghan, and indeed to Dublin, he did so in the company of the armed security guards of the Irish Government.
He went to the Republic of Ireland and was escorted throughout the South by the Special Branch of the Irish Government.
The hon. Gentleman said something about the smuggling of the Pope over the border. I do not think that anyone has that intention. I do not believe that the megalomania of the hon. Member for Antrim, North will have any effect on those drawing up the itinerary of His Holiness on his visit to Ireland. I have raised this matter deliberately to enable the Government to say that they do not support the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Antrim, North.

1.1 a.m.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I should find difficulty in following the remarks of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). I hope that he will also understand if I do not choose to become involved in discussion about the places to which His Holiness may, or may not, go in Ireland. I listened to his remarks with great care, as is my custom during Northern Ireland debates. I have also listened to the speeches of other hon. Members.
As the hon. Member for Belfast, West said, many of the issues that have to be discussed in the House—the only forum that elected representatives of Northern Ireland possess—belong much more to some form of regional council or upper tier of local government in Northern Ireland. I have heard Secretaries of State say that it is almost impossible to get leaders of the parties in Northern Ireland to agree some common ground on which they can stand. Surely this debate has shown that there is common ground and that such common ground is desired by all those from Northern Ireland who want to discuss important local matters in a forum other than the House of Commons. But there is clearly some time to go before new proposals for a devolved Administration can be brought forward. In the meantime, we must continue with

this style of debate, which, to quote the words of Dervla Murphy's book, "set this place apart" when we debate Northern Ireland.
I want to concentrate on the amount of money being spent by the Department of Commerce and to refer particularly to the written answer given today to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) about Harland and Wolff. I hope that my hon. Friends the Ministers with responsibility for Northern Ireland will not take it amiss when I say that I do not believe that this sort of written answer approach is anything like as good as a statement on the Floor of the House. I go further. If my hon. Friends choose to read some remarks that I made only a few months ago when we were discussing Harland and Wolff and Short Brothers and Harland, they will see that I thought it was incredible that these two nationalised industries are apparently not accountable in any way to the House of Commons and that there is no way by which Back Benchers can question those who have responsibility for them.
When I read in my right hon. Friend's statement that he is concerned about falling productivity and missed delivery dates, I ask what he intends to do about the situation. Is he simply going to tell the House in a written answer that these are his concerns and not allow the House to discuss two important shortcomings that, according to the statement, are some of the major reasons why Harland and Wolff is in its present parlous state?
I go further and ask my hon. Friend why the statement should start by saying that plans for Harland and Wolff have been formulated in parallel with those for British Shipbuilders. He will know, as I do, that they are separate entities. They are both nationalised, but they are separate entities, and we have been told many times that they are separate entities because the arrangement gives Harland and Wolff a certain flexibility. If that is the case, why are the plans formulated together? If that is the case, why does the written answer have to come on this day of the appropriation order debate when it is remarkably difficult for hon. Members to discover what may or may not have been said about Harland and Wolff? When I came into the Chamber to listen to the statement by the Minister of State and he referred to a separate


statement being made about the Northern Ireland shipyard, I wondered where I should discover that statement, and only by lucky chance did I discover the written answer.
I make a plea that next time we have a major statement about Harland and Wolff or Short Brothers and Harland or any other of the nationalised industries in Northern Ireland, we have it in such a way that we can question the Minister and try to draw from him what are the real problems besetting these various industries, especially the one called Harland and Wolff.
Before I leave the subject of Harland and Wolff, may I ask my hon. Friend three questions? Can he say more about the proposals to the EEC Commission for an intervention fund for subsidies on new orders over the next two years? Is that request being made peculiarly for Harland and Wolff or in the context of the British shipbuilding industry overall? Can he say something about diversification? Is there any possibility of some of the oil rig work, especially for the North Sea, being carried out at Harland and Wolff? What about the repairing of ships—a matter that has been raised in the past? Lastly, his statement says nothing about engine manufacture, which has been a rather successful part of Harland and Wolff's output. I should be grateful if he would say more about that. Finally, will he consider the proposal made by the Minister of State in the last Government that there should be what he described as progress reports on how the company was doing? Such reports given either in the course of a statement in a debate such as this or in a statement on the Floor of the House would be a valuable way of producing the sort of monitoring about which I have spoken.
The other factor which dominates this debate is the £35 million reduction in public expenditure in the Province. Naturally, at a time when so many Departments of State are having to face public expenditure cuts and the nation overall is wondering where those cuts will fall, most of those who take an interest in Northern Ireland will consider that the Province has come off comparatively lightly in all the circumstances. Yet a cut of £35 million will impose strains and difficulties. Therefore, if I turn the

remainder of my remarks to one specific project which will not only swallow up a vast amount of public money but is totally immune from the effects of those cuts, I hope that the House will bear with me.
The project that I am talking about is the De Lorean car project, which I have discussed before in this Chamber. I discussed it on 11 December last year, so rather more than six months have elapsed since the subject was debated, and I return to it partly because of a programme which the BBC put out on 15 July and partly because of various newspaper reports and other comments which I have heard on the project and which continue to keep me in a state of unease about whether adequate monitoring is going on of the £52·8 million of public money which has been committed to it.
When I raised the subject in December last year I had some success in the reply I received from the then Minister, and I did even better in a letter which the Minister of State sent me on 22 January this year. If I did reasonably well then, I have even higher hopes tonight, particularly as my hon. Friends now have the responsibility for this project and I am sure they are as concerned as I am that proper monitoring procedures should be introduced to ensure that this vast, costly and, by anybody's reckoning, high-risk project is considered with all the scrutiny possible, bearing in mind the extraordinary negotiation and deal which was done by the last Government and Mr. John De Lorean.
It is fair to say that Mr. De Lorean has the ability to charm birds out of the trees. It seems that in this negotiation he has succeeded in gaining control of an operation currently valued at £65 million with an investment of only £3 million to £4 million of his own money.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am interested in the figure of £3 million to £4 million which my hon. Friend has just given. As I understand it, the figure which Mr. De Lorean himself has consistently quoted is £2 million, which he said was all he could afford.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: I will not argue with my hon. Friend. Possibly he is more accurate than I am, but since in this programme the figure of £3 million to £4 million was bandied about and Mr. De


Lorean did not choose to deny it, I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Some say that in view of the American tax position his risk may not even be £2 million. But let us assume for the sake of my speech that his risk is £4 million for that sum he has acquired the effective control of this operation. For that investment, he will own 70 per cent. of the manufacturing company and 60 per cent. of the sales company.
Mr. De Lorean, when asked if this was the case, did not deny it. Indeed, he argued that the last British Government wanted it that way because of the expertise he possessed in cars and in the American automobile market. But if that is how the deal is set up, it is more breathtaking than I imagined when I first started probing it last year. If that is the deal, can the Minister say what monitoring system has been devised or is being devised by the Government to ensure that the £53 million of taxpayers' money will be spent as wisely as possible and that there will not he extravagant expenditure by Mr. De Lorean and his associates over which the Government have no control? In a nutshell, is any sort of audit being taken?
Indeed, the matter is causing great worry, because, as an investment adviser who took part in the BBC programme asked, what will happen to this product—the DMC 12 car—if it does not meet the standards of the authorities in the United States? What happens if something breaks down and there are great warranty claims on the company? Where will the finance come from to repair those vehicles, to cover insurance liability and rectify the design for future use?
The project has already run into difficulty. The process called elastic reservoir moulding, by which the car bodies were to be made, has been shelved. The arrival of the project in Europe has meant a considerable amount of re-engineering to take European components.
Is there adequate finance in the £53 million to meet such eventualities? I remind the Minister that Mr. De Lorean once said that they would make some mistakes. If this mistakes are made, where will the money come from to put them right and to give the project a reasonable chance of entering the market and selling?
I am worried that neither the previous Secretary of State for Northern Ireland nor Mr. Ronald Henderson of the Northern Ireland Development Agency, both of whom played a major part in negotiating the contract, chose to take part or comment. That gives me misgivings. It makes me fear that they were aware of the project's high risk. They prefer now not to commit themselves to statements in public about the viability of the project.
The cost of the car is important if it is to sell as well as Mr De Lorean predicts. The former Minister of State told me, in a letter of 22 January 1979, that the car was to sell at $11,000, at 1977 prices. I am told now that the car is to be offered at $15,000. That is a 36 per cent. increase in price. Is that increase simply the result of inflation or is the vehicle more costly to produce than anticipated?
The rise in the value of sterling is bound to have an effect on the vehicle's price in the United States. Added to that will be an element of inflation. That must make the vehicle less competitive than originally intended. Can the Minister say what the current market price is? Does market information from the United States still confirm the reality of Mr. De Lorcan's projected sale of 30,000 vehicles a year, upon which the project's future hangs?
Has Mr. De Lorean put his plans for a stainless steel saloon car and a coupé before the Government to lift his firm out of the single product category in which it will he if the DMC12 is the only vehicle that it produces? If he has put those proposals before the Government, has he put a cost on producing the two further vehicles? What reply, if any, has been given to Mr. De Lorean?
Did Mr. De Lorean approach the Minister before approaching Alfa Romeo in Italy about the agency for that car in America? The attempt by Mr. De Lorean to get that agency is extremely worrying. I understand that the Alfa Romeo family of cars, to some extent at least, will be direct competitors of the DMC12. If that is so, it does not suggest much confidence by Mr. De Lorean for the DMC12 into which so much taxpayers' money has been invested.
Of course, it may be said by some that it makes commercial sense to have one's eggs in more than one basket, but since the DMC12 is Mr. De Lorean's dream car, as he never ceases to tell those who ask him, and that is where his heart lies, I greatly hope that that is what it proves to be, for the cost of jobs in the De Lorean project, it has recently been pointed out, is running at about £25,000 each whereas for most small businesses in Northern Ireland the figure is about £4,200.
If the project is the success that Mr. De Lorean has stated it will be, and plainly persuaded the last Secretary of State that it could be, it will be of immeasurable benefit to Dunmurray and the west end of Belfast, and when one hears the hon. Member for Belfast, West speak of the unemployment in his constituency, one well realises that high hopes are pinned on the project.
I recognise that my comments tonight may put me in danger of being accused of casting doubts upon the success of this project, so let me say straight away that no one wishes more than I do that the car shall be the great success that Mr. De Lorean claims that it can be. However, the risk is high, the amount of taxpayers' money is considerable, and the hope given to the unemployed people of Belfast who see at long last the prospect of a job—something which they dreamed about and wondered whether they would ever see—must be high indeed.
It therefore behoves Mr. De Lorean to deliver the goods and the Government to ensure that the public money subscribed to him, money immune from any sort of cut which may be made in other sectors, is well spent to ensure that the car finds its way to the American market as soon as possible, is the best seller that Mr. De Lorean promises it will be, and produces a return to our people which, albeit that 30 years must elapse, will repay our nation the £53 million which we have lent to him.

1.22 a.m.

Mr. Harold McCusker: The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) reminded us that the level of public expenditure in Northern Ireland per head of population is much higher than it is in England, Scotland and Wales,

and an hon. Member on the Government Benches, in a sedentary interjection, spoke of Northern Ireland as being a very expensive region of the United Kingdom and made other references to taxpayers' money being used in Northern Ireland.
I do not think that anyone is more conscious of always appearing to beg than are Members from Northern Ireland when we discuss these matters, but there are a few other statistics that should be remembered. It was no surprise to learn that public expenditure in Northern Ireland was greater, as the hon. Member for West Lothian reminded us, but it is a remarkable fact that at the start of this decade that was not so. In 1970 public expenditure in Scotland per head of population was greater than public expenditure per head in Northern Ireland. It is a commentary on how this House has managed Northern Ireland affairs that expenditure has risen as high as it has and gone out of control to the extent that it has. If the Tory Party had not removed the mechanism for control of public expenditure in the form of the Government of Northern Ireland, perhaps one would not have to listen to the gibes that one hears in debates such as this.
There are some other statistics worth thinking about. Unemployment is twice as high, and family income supplement and supplementary benefits are taken up to a far greater extent in Northern Ireland than they are anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Household income and personal income is only three-quarters of what it is in the rest of the United Kingdom. Therefore, when the price of petrol is put up by lop a gallon, the effect is much greater on someone with a take-home pay of £75 than it is on someone with a take-home pay of £100 a week. If VAT is doubled, that affects people in Northern Ireland much more than it does people on the mainland.
We have to think about those things, too. Perhaps some hon. Members will say "So what? If that is the way things are, that is the way you have to live." That attitude is echoed in the energy report that was published yesterday, in which the observation is made that Northern Ireland has no indigenous fuel resources of its own and that it cannot be isolated from the consequences of that. It suggests that it is too bad that we do not have any gas, coal or oil and


that we shall have to accept the consequences.
There are other regions in the United Kingdom that are perhaps as far from the sources of energy as Northern Ireland and which have no indigenous fuel resources of their own. We in Northern Ireland are conscious that that fact is not referred to when we are considering the energy policy that will determine the standard of living of those areas.
I think that it is well known that I am the chairman of the Northern Ireland Gas Employers' Board. That is a rather meaningless title, as I happen to chair the body that co-ordinates the activities of the 13 gas undertakings in the Province. That is done on a voluntary basis, so I have no financial interest. My interests are the interests of my consumers and those of other gas consumers in the Province.
The board is deeply disappointed that the Government have refused to give Northern Ireland access to natural gas and in so doing have killed the gas industry in the Province. The Conservative Party, which claims to be the party of choice, has removed one element of choice from the Northern Ireland people.
All the old bogeys that we argued against in Committee over the past two or three years are raised again in the report on energy policy for Northern Ireland. We are told that
many people in Northern Ireland believe North Sea gas is a United Kingdom resource.
It seems that it is not a United Kingdom resource. It seems that it is not a resource from which Northern Ireland is entitled to benefit. What good news that will be for the Scottish nationalists. It will give them an even stronger claim for saying that it is a Scottish resource. It seems that it is not a United Kingdom resource because only 85 people out of 100 in Great Britain benefit from it. It is argued on that basis that no one in Northern Ireland should benefit from it. That is one of the old bogeys that we had to argue against time and time again in Committee.
I still believe that natural gas—North Sea gas—is a United Kingdom resource. I still believe that consumers in Northern Ireland should get the benefit of it.

Mr. Dalyell: In my constituency at Hound Point a good deal of the oil comes ashore. There is also an involvement in the gas industry. What is the technical cost of doing what the hon. Gentleman wants and taking gas to Northern Ireland?

Mr. McCusker: It is probably a little more than the money that is being poured into the De Lorean project. There are already 1,400 secure jobs in the gas industry that could be built upon. For little more than that which is being invested in a speculative gamble, we could build upon those jobs and add tremendously to the economic structure of Northern Ireland. The sum involved would be about £80 million. I accept that that is a colossal figure, but the gas employers' board demonstrated that a return could be obtained on that money if the project were handled properly and undertaken properly.
We have been denied that opportunity. Northern Ireland is now committed to an energy policy based on oil-generated electricity. Over the past few months we have seen Great Britain, Europe, the U.S.A. and the whole international civilised world turn its back on a dependency on oil. At a time when that is happening, the Government set Northern Ireland, a small province with no natural resources of its own, in a direction diametrically opposed to that taken by the rest of the world.
The Government are inflicting a high-cost fuel on a community that is not capable of paying for it. Northern Ireland's industry and commerce will suffer greatly. When the Miniser replies, I hope that he will be able to justify better to the people of Northern Ireland his reasons for refusing the Province the benefits to be derived from North Sea gas than has been done in the 10 or 12 pages of the report that he published yesterday.

1.30 a.m.

Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: I must confess that I am not altogether untempted by the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) that we might swap De Lorean for a gas connection. I would swap De Lorean for almost anything. I want to concentrate on this subject, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson). I have never before


ventured to intervene in a Northern Ireland debate. However, I was a little alarmed this evening to gather so much confirmation, as a result of comments made by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, of my impression that Northern Ireland is the one part of the United Kingdom where money is still thought to grow on trees.
I share the anxieties expressed by hon. Members on both sides about the fact that we should be discussing such very large sums at this hour of night. I am, in general, deeply concerned about the short-comings in the accountability of the Northern Ireland Office, and especially the Northern Ireland Development Agency, to this House for the taxpayers' money that it spends.
My hon. Friend the Member for New- bury raised the matter of De Lorean not only tonight but on a previous occasion last December. He—and he alone in the House—succeeded in extracting information from the previous Government about this monstrous commitment of public funds.
If this had happened on the other side of the St. George's Channel, I belive that it would have been taken for granted that the commitment of £52 million of taxpayers' money to a project on the wilder fringes of speculation should have been a subject of debate and discussion in the House at a much earlier stage. My hon. Friend, both on this occasion and the previous occasion when he raised the subject, was measured in his comments. In this instance I find it hard to measure. The facts, as they unroll themselves before us become, to my mind, more and more incredible with every week that passes.
When my hon. Friend raised this matter in the House last December, he was told by the then Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr. Ray Carter,
Before the agreement to provide this assistance
—for the De Lorean project—
was made, very careful evaluation of the project was carried out by officials of the Department of Commerce and the Northern Ireland Development Agency, who had available to them a very full analysis of the entire project which had been carried out by two highly reputable firms of business consultants and a comprehensive market survey carried out by specialist marketing consultants. A further report was also directly commissioned by the

Department of Commerce."—[Official Report. 11 December 1978; Vol. 960, c. 182.]
It sounds impressive, does it not, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Now we are told that the whole operation took just 45 days. As a former managing director of the Northern Ireland Development Agency said on the programme to which my hon. Friend referred, that can hardly be regarded as an adequate time to appraise a project of this magnitude and, it may be said also, of this speculative nature.
What we are talking about is a project to try to conquer the American sports car market. I understand that no new sports car has been introduced on the American market for 25 years, but Mr. De Lorean is to do it from the wrong end of the Falls Road in a matter of a couple of years. No new independent motor venture, I understand, has been successfully launched on the American market for 50 years, but Mr. De Lorean is to do it on the back of £2 million of his own cash and £52 million from the unfortunate British taxpayer.
As my hon. Friend reminded the House last December, such is the nature of this project that Mr. De Lorean felt obliged to state in the prospectus for his company, when he sought to have it trade on the over-the-counter market in New York, that no investor unprepared to lose the whole of the minimum $25,000 investment should apply for shares. The former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), had 4,000 times that amount to offer from the British taxpayer on the strength of a 45-day appraisal.
This dream car had been touted round the punters of the world. The Puerto Ricans would not touch it. The Southern Irish—who are not exactly slouches in the distribution of their taxpayers' money—even said that they reckoned that the taxpayer was being asked to take too high a proportion of the risk. Now we are told—and I hope that my hon. Friend, when he replies to the debate, will deal with this remarkable point—that for his 4 per cent. stake Mr. De Lorean has been awarded 60 per cent. of the sales company and 70 per cent. of the marketing company.
The former managing director of the Northern Ireland Development Agency


said that the project was not so much a commercial transaction; it was more like charity. I am not sure that "charity" is quite the right word for it. To get 60 per cent. of the sales company and 70 per cent. of the marketing company, for putting in just 4 per cent. of the stake money, sounds more like sweeping the pools—providing, of course, that the venture succeeds. Since it was originally conceived, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the value of the dollar has gone against sterling to the extent of 16 per cent., and we have had the energy crisis to push up substantially, even in the United States, the price of gasolene, which is a fairly important consideration for a car that Mr. De Lorean has said will contain a mixture of mystique, sex, prestige and class, and is to be suitably expensive to boot.
It has always seemed to me that in this instance the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Barnsley was not so much a soft touch as about the softest touch since someone tried to proposition Casanova, He rolled over and handed out the money.
What control and what redress do we have? It was said that we should be careful not to knock the prospects of the company, but we have an obligation to our constituents to stand guard over the sums which are committed in their name. I am bound to say to my hon. Friend the Minister that we have to ask whether at this stage it would not have been very much more economical for the taxpayers of the United Kingdom if this contract—so wilfully, so irresponsibly entered into by the previous Administration—were cancelled and the compensation which might arise therefrom paid.
I remind my hon. Friends that we were told time and time again that it would be too expensive to cancel the Concorde aircraft because of the compensation fees that might arise. My God, we should have made a good deal if we had at any stage. I cannot help thinking that that must also be the case with the famous De Lorean car project.
On 24 May I asked my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary what was his latest estimate of the cost to public funds of each permanent job to be created by the De Lorean car plant. His answer was:
On the assumption that 2,000 permanent jobs will be created, it is estimated that

Government grants and loans will total £17,593 per job."—[Official Report, 24 May 1979; Vol. 967, c. 177.]
I fail to understand the arithmetic of that figure. Mr. De Lorean has said that the project will cost the taxpayer £52 million. My hon. Friend the Minister of State tonight gave us reason to wonder whether it was going to cost us more still. If the figure were £52 million and 2,000 jobs were to be created, I should have thought that the sum per job was £26,000.
That is not just my supposition. When I wrote to my hon. Friend for further elucidation, he gave me figures which I understood definitely to confirm that £26,000 was the correct figure. We must get the correct figure on the record. Our constituents have some right to know the scale of the ride for which they are being taken. Let us hope that the project succeeds. It will be a brave man who puts his shirt on that. I suggest that in future when we give Ministers the right to indulge in speculative ventures of this kind we should somehow manage to insert in the legislation a provision obliging them to commit at least a small proportion of their own personal resources to backing the wondrous projects they take us into.

1.43 a.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I do not know that I follow the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) in suggesting that Ministers should commit some of their personal resources to these projects, but I support him in what he said about the De Lorean project. I represent the huge British Leyland truck and tractor division at Bathgate. That is not the car industry, but, like many other parts of the motor industry, it is extremely short of capital investment. Several of my constituents have asked how the Government can find this sum of money for a project in Northern Ireland when, Heaven knows, it is difficult enough to get capital investment for units of British Leyland that are in the black and have a very good export record.
They ask also, on a purely technical level, how British Leyland has to go to Honda for this kind of expertise, yet, lo and behold, for a fairly trifling sum in terms of the development of motor cars, Northern Ireland can apparently achieve something that no one else has been able to achieve.
May we have a report tonight on the likely viability of this project and what the Government have learnt from other members of the motor industry about the prospects of the success of this project? I am aware that there may be a question of commercially sensitive information, but I think that we are entitled to some kind of comment. However, I should not try to press the matter further if the Government took certain refuge behind the screen of the difficulties of commercial information.
I should like to concede something to the hon. Members for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) and Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I concede that, in the absence of local government, it is indeed proper for hon. Members to raise questions on sewerage, drainage and housing heating here, because there is nowhere else to raise them. I think that some of us would in general terms feel that the sooner local government institutions are returned to Northern Ireland the better, regardless of other arguments.
I should like to answer a question that was generally put in my direction by the hon. Member for Belfast, West. He asked why the House should be so empty of those from other than Notrhern Ireland constituencies. Was it that we were just not interested?

Mr. James Molyneaux: That was not accurate.

Mr. Dalyell: I do not think that it was quite fair. It is not that we are not interested; it is that honourably, for a long time, we have not wanted to make matters worse by opening our mouths. Indeed, we were discouraged from taking an interest by successive Ministers who had responsibility. In 1969, when I first wanted to go to inform myself about the position in Northern Ireland, as a matter of courtesy I wrote to the then Minister of State, Home Office saying that I wanted to go. Within hours I found myself summoned by no less a person than the Home Secretary, who put the proper, but unanswerable, question, other than to a man of supreme arrogance: what could I do in Northern Ireland for the sake of Ulster that he could not as Home Secretary? There is no answer to that kind

of question. It was for that kind of reason that many of us, who felt that we had an obligation to inform ourselves, were reluctant to go.
In the 1970s, at the time of the Ulster workers' strike, some of us went to Hawthornden Road and, a fortnight later, to the women's prison in Armagh and to the Maze, to be taken round by some of those on the other side of the argument. That caused us to incur the displeasure of our senior Ministers, for understandable reasons.
It is for that kind of reason that some of us are a bit late in the day in taking an interest in affairs in Northern Ireland. But I think that there is now an overwhelming obligation on us to take a serious interest. Whether it will be welcome is another matter.
In candour, hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies must understand that among our constituents there is now a growing degree of fedupness and impatience. As the economic situation gets worse, in the opinion of many of us, that impatience and fedupness will grow.
It is not necessarily my own view, but certainly there was a widely held feeling in Scotland when Northern Ireland was a subject of understandable discussion during the referendum campaign of "A plague on all your houses." That may be irritating and it may be unfair on people who have displayed, as many hon. Members present tonight have displayed, a great deal of personal courage, and who have had appalling difficulties that have not been faced by people in my position from this side of the water. I understand all that, but it must be said that there is a growing feeling, especially given the economic circumstances in which the country finds itself, of "A plague on all your houses", a lack of sympathy.
Five years ago, three years ago, even one year ago, there was a great deal of sympathy with people in the North of Ireland. I must say, without being pompous or lecturing or hectoring anyone, that a number of us detect that that sympathy, such as existed, is now waning and is giving way to a growing feeling—the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) shakes his head. It may be different in Newbury. I simply report the impression that some of us are getting.


We may be contradicted, but that must be said.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that my constituents admire the courage of the people of Northern Ireland and hope, as I do, that they will be relieved of the wretched terrorists who have ruined their lives for the past 10 years.

Mr. Dalyell: I naturally take that as the hon. Gentleman's sincere judgment.

Mr. Stephen Ross: While we share the views of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson), what we are really getting fed up with is the sort of stories that we are hearing of the misappropriation of public money—particularly in the case of the De Lorean car company and such matters as the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Those are the matters the general public in this country will be becoming more and more concerned about in the months ahead.

Mr. Dalyell: I also accept that intervention in the spirit in which it was made.
The purpose of my speech is simply to ask a very precise question. The most important cost of affairs in Northern Ireland is, without question, the lives of individuals—the lives of the Army, the lives of people in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will say to which part of the order he is now addressing himself. I do not think that there is anything in the order about that.

Mr. Dalyell: I come directly to the question, the question which has been put by other hon. Members in various forms, as to precisely what the cost now is of public spending in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Down, North who made a very controversial speech and might have remained for the rest of the debate—

Mr. Rossi: The hon. Gentleman is not well.

Mr. Dalyell: In that case, I naturally accept that the hon. Gentleman had to go. He made a considerable point about the question of costs and seemed to assume, as did some other hon. Members,

including my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West, that somehow or other Northern Ireland took priority over the rest of us in present circumstances.
People who represent the shipbuilding industry, or any related industry, on this side of the water are entitled to ask what is the public spending per head for Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. Do the Government have these figures? It sticks in the gullet of some of us to hear the hon. Member for Down, North suggest that Northern Ireland has been badly treated. The question that I am asking is precisely how much money, and how much money per head, has gone from the United Kingdom Treasury to Northern Ireland.
My general view is one that some of us have held for some time. I interrupted the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) when, as Leader of the Opposition, he was speaking in the emergency legislation debate to point out that many of us feel, without any ill will, that the English, Scots and Welsh are simply no good when it comes to dealing with the problems of Northern Ireland.
Not since Lord Mountjoy has any British politician had much success in Ireland. Strafford failed, Cromwell failed, Gladstone failed. I vividly remember being taken round her library by my constituent the Countess of Rosebery, who explained at length how Lord Rosebery had come to great grief in Northern Ireland. Lloyd George certainly failed in Ireland. What makes the present Secretary of State think that he can succeed where a whole succession of Scots, Welsh and Englishmen have failed?
There is a perfectly respectable view that whatever the problems of the Six Counties there is little that can be done about them from this side of the water and that the final solution resides with the people of the north of Ireland.

1.56 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Giles Shaw): It may be of advantage if I intervene at this stage in order to comment on those matters for which my Department—the Department of Commerce—is responsible. I am conscious that had I realised the number of matters that would be laid directly at the door of the Department I might not have been so bold as to offer


to intervene and might have left my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to deal consummately with winding up the debate.
However, we felt it right that those of us able to be here for the debate should endeavour to deal with matters raised by hon. Members. I shall deal with one or two of the smaller issues before coming on to the major issues.
The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) asked what was being undertaken in the regional aid review and whether it was the thin end of a wedge leading to major cuts in regional investment. I assure him that by reviewing our regional and incentive aids for Northern Ireland we are endeavouring to make sure that they are as competitive and effective as those elsewhere. It is not part of a cost-cutting exercise, but if in the course of the review we discover that we are being inefficient I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be the first to agree that we should be more efficient and that if that reduces the money available, so be it. Our intention is to make certain that our regional aid incentives are effective and competitive.
The hon. Member for Pontypridd referred to the Northern Ireland Development Agency. We believe that NIDA should continue its effective job in seeking market opportunities and bringing projects into the Province. Its staff has been strengthened and we believe it right that it should be continued in its role.
I have to point out that three agencies are involved in investment in the Province—NIDA, the smaller development unit dealing with projects involving 50 jobs or fewer, and the Department of Commerce, which oversees both agencies and has major responsibility for inward investment. It is my view that we should look at how the three agencies inter-react to make sure that there is no duplication.
Hon. Members have referred to the Antrim Crystal Company. I regret that it was found necessary by the company to close its works. In the development of an art form such as crystal, perhaps insufficient time was set aside for the satisfactory development of products, but the House will understand that the firm is part of a wider organisation involving

Tyrone Crystal of Dungannon, and the two parts were substantially interlocked.
It was our overall view that we should seek to save, if possible, the viability of crystal-making capacity, and that meant that the Antrim works had to be phased out in favour of maintaining the Tyrone works in Dungannon, which we hope will become viable over the rest of the year. We shall certainly not be slow to look, if we can, to find those who might be willing to become investors in this operation, because there is an important skill here which should be preserved.
The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) raised the question of the closure of the Peter Pan bakery which I know has been a matter of great concern to his constituents—another of the closures in the area of West Belfast, which he has so strongly represented in this House whenever we come to discuss matters of this kind.
This closure was part of a long-term rationalisation of the baking industry in which the Peter Pan company sought to be associated, and the matter had been under review for many months. Indeed, the Labour Government were well advanced in discussion as far back as last November. The fact remains that, in the ultimate stages of the closure, of the 400 or so workers employed, between 150 and 200 obtained other jobs, many of them within the industry, and there was great pressure for a decision on ultimate closure to be made. I regret the consequences of any closure to a community, but I emphasise that in this case the closure was not only inevitable but a very long time in coming. There was major pressure for the decision finally to be made, and it was made.
The three other major elements in the debate that fall within my lot to comment upon are the De Lorean issue, the Harland and Wolff issue and the energy report. My hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) and Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) laid much stress on the De Lorean issue.

Mr. Dalyell: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the total cost question that has been asked by a number of us is outwith his brief?

Mr. Shaw: It is outside my personal brief at the moment, but I will see that the hon. Gentleman gets the fullest possible answer.
Obviously, the De Lorean issue is a matter of very great concern to all of us. The Labour Government entered into an undertaking by which a great deal of public money has been put at risk—and I use the word advisedly. But it is incumbent upon the present Government, who have inherited the risk, to see to it that we make the operation work, and it is certainly our policy to see that it comes to a successful fruition if that is humanly possible to achieve.
There has been little mention by my hon. Friends of the enormous danger that success might establish a 2,000-man or woman unit on the outskirts of Belfast. That would be a fantastic achievement if it could be done. Many will say that it is impossible, and my hon. Friends suggested that there are grave doubts about it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury was anxious to know what degree of monitoring would be applied to the project. There are two executives representing the NIDA on the board of the project, and quarterly management audits are available to us in the Department of Commerce. Additional information will be available to us through the executives on the board about any matter at any time. So monitoring is being actively and safely undertaken.
Secondly, my hon. Friend raised the question of the speed with which this project had been launched and the comment by an investment analyst that it was indeed a very speedy operation. I cannot comment, because I was not involved, on the degree of veracity there is in that comment, but I must point out that there are many differing views as to the quality of comment made by that investment analyst on the project. He was, after all, at one time managing director of the Northern Ireland Finance Corporation.
If I mentioned to this House the Strathearn Audio operation, which has closed, and which was a major disaster in the Belfast area, I would have to add that I do not regard that as a particularly fine example of an attractive investment analysis. It may be that there are other views about how successful or otherwise the De Lorean project will be from other analyses.
I can say, on the pricing, that the price of the product will now be nearer the $14,000 to $15,000 mark rather than the $11,000 originally committed. Further, 300 dealers have signed up for about the first two years' production of the car. They have each made a substantial investment in the project. Private capital is now of the order of £13 million within that project. There are signs that there are many others prepared to take the risk, although I concede to my hon. Friends that Mr. De Lorean's personal stake is, I understand, $4 million, as it was originally.
My hon. Friends will also be aware that under the present arrangements the equity capital provided by the Northern Ireland Development Agency—£17 million—can be bought back by Mr. De Lorean should he wish to exercise his option to do so.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Could my hon. Friend clear up one point? He said that there were two representatives of the Northern Ireland Development Agency on the board of the De Lorean Company in Ireland. Are those the two who were primarily responsible, under the previous Secretary of State, for organising the arrival of the project in the first place? If they arc, it might be felt that they would hardly be the most forthcoming or the quickest to sound the alarm bells about the company's future progress.

Mr. Shaw: My hon. Friend has raised a pertinent question and one, moreover, that I cannot answer. I shall write to him on the matter. I do not know whether both board members, or either, were involved in the initial assessment.
The point I want to make is that there has been a fairly significant amount of evidence on the other side. Let us be under no illusion. Both my hon. Friends are right to say that this is a high-risk project. We live in a Province where the risks on anything are high. It seems that we have to move carefully before deciding to throw out this prospect which could bring such enormous improvement to the job situation in Belfast and an engineering technology whose spin-off in other forms of engineering establishments could be important.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury raised a number of points on Harland and Wolff, to which I now turn.


I first apologise, if apology is necessary, for the fact that the relevant statement was made today in answer to a written question. It was, I know, felt by some that there should be an oral statement, with the opporunity for questions. The Government took the view that, with this debate available, the opportunity for discussion would be a greater advantage than question and answer after a statement.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury asked, first, why it was that, as Harland and Wolff and Shorts were nationalised undertakings, they were not available for examination in this House. That is a fair point. We do not have as much opportunity for examining the undertakings of these great enterprises as our colleagues representing seats in other parts of the country have for examining the undertakings of the nationalised industries. We should look at this and find an opportunity for raising these issues more often.
The question of missed delivery dates was raised. My hon. Friend asked what I intended to do about it. I have met the unions concerned today. I went through with them, very carefully, the list of six ships on order, on the stocks and already behind schedule. I have made it clear to them that any further falling behind on the delivery schedules of the orders they already have must seriously undermine the reputation of the yard and, therefore, make it more difficult for them to obtain orders in future.
My hon. Friend asked why the statement referred to planning in conjunction with British Shipbuilders. The answer, primarily, is that under the EEC regulations for shipbuilding the United Kingdom has to supply a shipbuilding proposition for the yards as a whole, in which Harland and Wolff is included. It was for that purpose that they were put in together in a submission which we hope will result in agreement for the use of Harland and Wolff as part of the beneficiaries from the intervention fund. That is why the proposals were made in the context of the British Shipbuilders proposals.
My hon. Friend then referred to diversification. This is proceeding well. The arrangement made with the MAN company of Augsburg for the production of marine and land engines has proceeded well, and I am encouraging the company

to look for other diversification projects that might help to spread the load of the work force at Harland and Wolff.
That brings me to the major questions that were raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) and others in connection with the long-term future of Harland and Wolff, and in particular why there was no specific reference to a figure of reduced labour supply in relation to the prospects for Harland and Wolff.
In making the statement today on Harland and Wolff, we have made it clear that the Government are continuing to provide funds for the ensuing year. The hon. Member for Belfast, West is in his seat. He asked why we do not spend more. I remind him that £35 million was spent on the major re-equipment of the yards; that £65 million was spent under the previous Administration, which expired in March of this year; and that the present Government have laid a further £22 million on the table for the current year. That means that a total of £117 million has been or is being spent on this yard.
I am aware just how significant Harland and Wolff is to the people of Belfast and to those who work within it, but I am bound to say, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand, that with that continuous high level of public investment there comes a time when we have to say "If you are not building ships to time, if you are falling back on your committed order and delivery dates, how can we possibly continue to subvent public funds for this purpose?", and we have reached that point today.
In our discussions with the unions today, and in our discussions with management previously, we recognised—and I believe that everybody in Northern Ireland recognises—that they just cannot go on like this, the more so when we have to remind ourselves that Harland and Wolff has an order book for eight ships which lasts until 1981—a significantly better order book than nearly every yard within the United Kingdom—and that we have the finest yard and the finest equipment available in Europe. We have to remember also that we have had very high levels of productivity in previous years, when the losses were down as low as £4 million in one year. They rose to £7 million the year after, and in the


year just closed they reached the alarming figure of £21·4 million.
It is for those reasons that in making the statement today we deliberately did not say that there would be x thousand jobs at risk unless this matter was concluded, and we did not project a figure for the job loss. The job loss will almost certainly come about if the orders that are presently being worked on run out without any further replacements. The job loss will almost certainly come about if the productivity levels in the yard continue to give concern and therefore make the yard less competitive.
I cannot place a figure on what that would mean, and I am determined, by diversification, to help to spread the risk, but one thing of which I am certain, and one thing of which every Member in this House from Northern Ireland should be certain, is that the Government have reached a point where they must say, once and for all, that the future of Harland and Wolff rests with the management and work force of the company, and that in 12 months' time there will have to be a final and agonising reappraisal of the position.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Have the worker directors of Harland and Wolff been elected? Will my hon. Friend say something about that?

Mr. Shaw: I regret that I cannot answer that question, but I shall write to my hon. Friend about it. I was not aware of any new development that had come my way in recent weeks. If it was an imminent event, it is not a piece of information that has come my way. I shall write to my hon. Friend on that matter.
I now turn to the matter that has perhaps the greatest long-term consequences. I refer to the paper that we have placed in the Library, on energy. The Government recognise that what we have set down for the House is an energy paper of a wide-ranging kind. It is not simply a matter of a decision upon a gas pipeline. We felt that it was right to make the energy review as wide as possible. One of the reasons why we felt it was necessary to lay the paper before the House prior to the recess is the increasing anxiety expressed to us about the existing 13 gas undertakings. The hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Mc-

Cusker) knows, more than anyone else, the parlous state of these undertakings and their desperate need for a decision either way.
It would not be the wish of the House, I believe, that I should go through the paper. It sets out at length the main parameters within which we felt we should take a decision. First, there are major electric generating installations in Northern Ireland and a new one comes on stream in Kilroot next year. Secondly, gas is at the lowest end of energy consumption, for the obvious reason that it remains a domestic and scattered usage rather than a major industrial usage. Thirdly, we believe that there must be real anxiety about energy prices within the Province. I know that this has been at the back of the minds of many hon. Members in their strong and vigorous argument for the connection with the gas pipe. On the other hand, we have come to the conclusion that on the figures projected by the consultancy run by the British Gas Corporation, compared with those figures offered by the other consultancy, prepared by the gas employers, the general charges offered by the Gas Corporation were correct and the long-term viability of the gas pipe would produce a continuing drain on public funds.
We furthermore took the view that the most crucial matter at present was security of supply. That has already been mentioned in so far as we are relying to a considerable degree, perhaps 90 per cent. of generation, on the availability of oil. The paper therefore contains a commitment that we should be able to retain stocks for the oil generation at Kilroot which would be sufficient for that purpose and that those stocks, from the point of view of energy policy, would be a security against developments in the world oil market.
I fully recognise that in arriving at this decision we have turned our backs, in many people's view, on what people in the Province sought from this Government, namely, a commitment for a connection into a cheaper supply of energy than they possess. The facts, however, suggest to us that it would not be cheaper to pipe into the natural gas supply of the United Kingdom and that we could well continue to provide competitive energy pricing based on our oil installations in Kilroot provided that we were able to


optimise the generation from that plant. It is in that regard that interconnection plays such an important part.

Mr. McCusker: Would the Minister indicate the Government's attitude if, in the foreseeable future, it was shown that there was possibly oil or gas in the Rathlin basin or the Foyle basin? If gas were found, would the Government run a pipe around Northern Ireland and connect it to the system in Great Britain, or would we have a share?

Mr. Shaw: We will certainly meet that question if it comes to light. The hon. Gentleman can hardly expect me to give a hypothetical answer. We have set out in the energy paper proposals for the energy scene in Northern Ireland that we can reasonably foresee. I take the point that a time could come when connection to Great Britain, either for gas or for electricity, might be a viable undertaking. As we now stand, bearing in mind the need to take a decision in the light of the parlous state of the gas undertakings, we feel that the decision arrived at is the most sensible, given the circumstances that we have had to take into account.

Mr. Stephen Ross: Have any discussions taken place with the Irish Government over the joint use of gas supplies?

Mr. Shaw: The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) will know that the Southern Irish Government not only are short of electricity but are extremely interested to try to find any source of piped gas supply. I am led to believe that their indigenous sources of gas are largely round the area of Cork and may not be sufficient for the Southern Irish consumption as a whole.
I make it clear that we have set down in this paper our view that if there is to be any future interconnection it should be between the North of Ireland and Great Britain and that gas—or electricity, if that be the correct fuel to bring across to Ireland—should be routed in that way. Our job in the Province must be to try to sustain an energy policy which will enable the population in Northern Ireland to enjoy energy at a reasonable price. We undertake to keep the price under review, because I recognise that in concentrating upon electricity, although coal will continue to be competitive, as will some

forms of bottled gas, we are creating to a greater degree a monopoly, and with monopoly comes the danger of anticompetitive pricing.

Mr. Dalyell: I asked the hon. Gentleman about public expenditure per head. I seem to sec a note being passed to the Treasury Bench from those who may be able to provide the information. When does the hon. Gentleman hope to be able to answer my question?

Mr. Shaw: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) to provide the answer to his question when he winds up the debate a little later on.

Mr. Robert J. Bradford: On the subject of a gas link between the rest of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, can the Minister say how many letters have passed between the Government and the appropriate department in the EEC about aid for such a project? Can the correspondence be made available to those of us who are interested in the subject?

Mr. Shaw: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to look into that and see whether the correspondence exists and whether it is worth publishing to the hon. Gentleman. He will recognise that any EEC correspondence is more likely to be between differing parts of the Community rather than between two parts of one member State.

Mr. Robert J. Bradford: Without incurring your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I respond to a few of the questions raised in the debate? They are constitutional points, although they impinge on the wider economic questions which have been under consideration in the debate.
The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) tended to half-apologise for his involvement in the debate, and he related his experience of having been discouraged in the past by a previous Home Secretary from becoming involved in the Northern Ireland question. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the advice which he was offered on that occasion comes to us as no surprise, because that Home Secretary had a great propensity for asking all the wrong questions, because he based his analysis of the Northern Ireland situation


on totally wrong premises. The involvement of the hon. Member for West Lothian is very welcome, and we enjoy his contributions to these debates.
As for the hon. Gentleman's feeling of futility, we who represent Northern Ireland constituencies are not at all surprised. On Thursday evening of last week, we had an example of the most depressing and disturbing analysis that we have had the misfortune to hear in this House about Northern Ireland. It was clear, without his saying it, that the former Secretary of State somehow believed that the only future for Northern Ireland was disengagement by this House at some future date and for Northern Ireland to be left to its own resources. The emotional commitment which the right hon. Gentleman has always had to that inherent nonsense is partly based on his difficulty in distinguishing between the political problem and the so-called religious problem.
The Northern Ireland problem has never been inherently religious; it has always been political. But because the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) refuses to recognise that fact, or simply cannot recognise it, he encourages those who would economically damage the Province and so compounds the desire of those who say that it costs so much that there is no alternative but to withdraw.
Dealing with Class V of the order, I should like first to speak about the reshuffling of the Housing Executive, which is presented as a restructuring. A number of documents such as this have been circulated to all Northern Ireland Members and perhaps to others; they purport to illustrate how the Executive is being updated to meet some of the criticisms made in the House since its inception.
When the Housing Executive was created in 1971, it was done on the false premise that a section of the Northern Ireland community was deliberately disadvantaged in housing opportunity because housing was within the control of local government. It is no surprise to those of us who made observations outside the House at the time—certainly not to those who made precisely the same observations in the House—that any concept based on such nonsense would in time itself become nonsense. A house built on sand will not last. That pro-

phecy has been proved correct. So this tottering building has been restructured.
But, alas, it is not a proper restructuring; it is merely a reshuffling. It is not a demolition job followed by a construction on a firm foundation; it is a mere shifting of a few bricks. The reshuffling that is being sold as restructuring will prove as futile and costly as the present edifice.
For example, I understand that the 30 positions within the headquarters of the Executive will cost about £250,000 in salaries per year. If we were to get an immensely improved service for slightly more money, one would not quibble. But we do not think that that will happen. If we are to accept reshuffling at a cost of £250,000 for each 30 jobs, we must be given reason to believe that those 30 people will produce better results.
There is no great difference between the work being done now and that which was done in the past, althought it is named differently. We now have directors, regional controllers and offshoots of those posts. However, the burden of day-to-day work will fall on the district offices. The district managers will be asked to exercise more responsibility, to face more irate tenants, and to grapple with more insoluble problems while the regional controllers and directors—that top-heavy bureaucracy, functioning at a cost of £250,000 per 30 jobs—do not earn their corn.
That is not a restructuring job; it is a reshuffle. It is incumbent on the Minister to examine what is offered and to reject the proposals because they are top-heavy. He must acknowledge that the district managers are assuming responsibility for many of the functions which the documents recommend should be undertaken by regional controllers. I refer to maintenance, directly employed labour, clerical support, recruiting personnel, administrative support, statistics and information.
All that work is being done by district managers. Advice from the area and regional managers is a rehash of advice from the district managers. We are being offered a top-heavy bureaucracy at an increased cost, which will not improve the performance of the Executive one iota.
I urge the Minister to consider the proposals and to examine carefully the need


of the regional controllers. I hope that he will accept that we require more incentive to produce the type of district manager which the Executive needs, and that we must give him a realistic wage which will encourage him to import further responsibility.
The director of housing management may require assistance to liaise with the district manager, but he does not need six regional controllers and thousands of pounds a year. A method should be devised so that the director of housing can liaise directly with the district managers who assume immediate and full responsibility for the day-to-day matters with which they deal already.
I turn to the Rowland report. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) said that his constituents were becoming more concerned at the misappropriation of money in Northern Ireland. The truth is that in many cases the misappropriation of money comes about not because of the folly of Ulstermen but because of the folly of Englishmen. I shall give examples to show what I mean.
We have the dreadful concept still persisting in the minds of some members of the former Government that somehow or other one can buy the allegiance of those whose commitment has been given to another sovereign State. In 1974 the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leeds, South, faced a most traumatic situation. Violence was increasing beyond anyone's fears or expectations, and suddenly the right hon. Gentleman felt a possible way forward was not to pursue the gunmen, not to remove them from society, but somehow to buy their allegiance by providing jobs for ex-detainees, for members of the IRA, for people who were known to be involved in terrorism.
The right hon. Gentleman was aided and abetted in that course by the Feacle clerics and their associates. Incidentally, one of their associates was a failed Englishman who had to come to Northern Ireland to make his mark in education. So I say that it has been not the folly of Ulstermen but the folly of Englishmen who believe that allegiance and loyalty can be bought.
Thus, we had the dreadful state of affairs of building companies brought into

being with the direct knowledge of Her Majesty's Government, financed by Her Majesty's Government, and these people draining the taxpayer's purse without any restraints whatever. Indeed, when fears were expressed after several months, an official of the Department of the Environment said on the telephone—I take this from the Rowland report:
I advised Mr. X"—
the gentleman at the Executive responsible for the contracts with these three companies—
that while the Department did not wish to interfere with the internal arrangements of the Executive, we had to consider:
(a) the possible capital which could be made locally about this"—
by "this" was meant possible redundancies, and the cutting off of the contracts—
and its implications in a ceasefire situation;
(b) the Minister's position on paying off labour for a few weeks and re-engaging;
(c) all this against a background of massive underspending by the Executive this year",
Why was there underspending? It was because the Executive was not building houses. The very body brought into being to build houses for all sections of the community in Northern Ireland could not do it, yet the bodies which were castigated for failing in that task had undertaken it magnificently up to 1972, namely, the local authorities.

Mr. Dalyell: Can the hon. Gentleman understand that what he says about my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) is very riling to a person like me? Whether or not one agrees with my right hon. Friend's policies, those of us who were here at the time know that he sweated his proverbial guts out and that no man could have tried harder or given more of himself to try to do the right thing.
Does not the hon. Gentleman begin to understand that when he makes that sort of critcism of my right hon. Friend—I do not say "attack"—referring to the folly of Englishmen, there are some of us who react by saying "All right. If that is the sort of attack that is to be made from all sides, should we not do better to do as the biblical Levite did and pass by on the other side of the road?" What can we do here that is right?

Mr. Bradford: We must base our policy on what is best for the United Kingdom and for the subjects of the United Kingdom, not on expediency and on what might keep the aspirants of another foreign State happy for a short while. The hon. Gentleman said that there were no periods when Englishmen could grapple with Northern Ireland. That is not true. I contend that Cromwell grappled with it rather well. In the eighteenth century the Tories grappled with it rather well. If we take the best ingredients of both, we may look for a Tory militarist. I suspect that we would, without much hope, draw aside to witness that great sight nowadays.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, South made a deliberate decision. His decision was to release from the Maze prison a detainee called Mr. McQuire, knowing that within prison he had devised a scheme whereby a building company would come into being and would operate as a monopoly, thereby being able to demand its own price and terms for work. As Mr. McQuire and other members of the building company were committed to the IRA concept, including that of violence, the moneys channelled to that company were inevitably to be used for violence. The right hon. Gentleman would have been naive in the extreme—I call him many things, but not naive—if he had not realised that that was a possibility. The very fact that his own Department stated that the ceasefire issue was at stake is germane to the argument.
I appreciate that the hon. Member for West Lothian will seek to come to the defence of his right hon. Friend, but I ask him to ponder on all the documents in my possession, which I shall gladly let him have, before making his own assessment and judgment.
The Rowland report is a dreadful indictment of both the Department of the Environment and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Some action must be taken to ensure that such a dreadful debacle does not happen again. Evidence was presented to the Rowland committee that did not receive the emphasis that it deserved. It highlighted the involvement of the Northern Ireland Office and some departmental officials with known members of the IRA, placing a great financial burden and much pressure on the British

taxpayer in Northern Ireland and in this part of the kingdom.
That is bad enough in itself, but it is my information that the Housing Executive had a deficit of £21 million wiped out by Her Majesty's Government. A not inconsequential sum was involved in the West Belfast problem. An example of that great misappropriation is the Moyard rehabilitation scheme. At the beginning of the scheme the budgeted cost per unit was £3,000. Just after the work began it was clear that each unit would cost £4,800. At the end of the scheme it was admitted by the former Minister for Housing in Northern Ireland that the average amount spent on each unit was about £15,996, which meant that some of those units cost far more, some rather less. Units that were budgeted at £3,000 were paid for at the rate of £15,996 on average.
How many lives has that money indirectly taken? How many widows and orphans have been created? The reason is the lack of accountability of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. The nonsense brought into being in 1971 has become the Frankenstein's monster that we thought and warned that it would become. It has taken away not only the wealth but also the lives of the nation. I hope that all those in the Department of the Environment who tried to excuse this misappropriation are proud of themselves. I hope that those in the Housing Executive who knew what was going on are proud of themselves.
I am only sorry that the Commission and the report do not have more teeth and power, because those who were identified as responsible for this debacle might have been pursuable, even legally.
We come to the present moment. Still the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Department of the Environment have not learnt their lesson. In certain areas of the city there is still an attempt to buy allegiance, acquiescence or peace, whatever we may call it. In the Essex Street area, in my constituency, a rehabilitation scheme that was supposed to cost £9,500 per unit is now being completed at an estimated cost of about £17,000 at present, in real money terms. But what is happening in the constituency of Belfast, North and in my constituency? The only increase allowed on the fixed price of the 1976 contracts is 11½ per cent., which means that the work expected


and outlined in 1976 cannot be done at today's prices. Those involved are told "Do not do the new work; do a patch-up job." That was being offered in certain areas of North and South Belfast.
If the patience of the people of Great Britain is running out, the patience of the Ulster people is at the end of its tether, because of this ongoing nonsense. That impatience exists because we have no control over our local affairs.
I come finally to the question of maintenance, which was fully dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I want to deal with three issues that have not been fully dealt with.
There is, first, the whole question of the insulation policy adopted in respect of Housing Executive properties. During the last winter, which was particularly relentless, the Executive placed insulation on the ceilings or in the attics of some dwellings. It did not touch the pipes or the tanks—just the attics, the ceilings, or the roofs. That had the effect of keeping the heat out where previously it penetrated into the attic and kept the pipes free. Yet the Housing Executive stated that its policy was to lag pipes as well as the roof spaces. Many a constituent sustained considerable damage to furniture and property because only part of the insulation policy was pursued, but there will be no compensation and no redress for these constituents.

Mr. Dalyell: Is the charge that the Housing Executive is technically incompetent and does not know its job, or that it is politically malicious, or both? For most of us—the laity outside Northern Ireland—it is rather baffling.

Mr. Bradford: The answer, I think, is that the Housing Executive is incompetent because of its size. The Department and the Housing Executive to a lesser extent have in the past been the tools of their masters; therefore there has been an element of connivance. It is a simple fact of life in Northern Ireland. Distasteful it may be, but it is a fact of life.
As for conserving energy, we have illustrations of certain heating apparatus being installed in homes—apparatus from which radiators could be taken which would heat all sections of the house—

but this has been refused on the basis that the policy decision was drawn up by the Department, £x has been allocated by the Department, and there will be no change in that heating policy for any given area. Yet folk are having to run off gallons and gallons of hot water because the apparatus installed is capable of producing a radiator system, but none is to be provided. In these cases no consultation took place between the Executive and the tenants. They were not asked if they would like radiators. They were not advised that radiators would be a help and a benefit.
In one case I have managed to have the Executive change its mind and the Department to come up with the small amount of money required, but many other areas have not enjoyed the same kind of treatment.
Finally, I want to touch on the issue of a rehabilitation scheme which has been proposed by the Hartington Street and Salisbury Street housing association. This association is not yet recognised, in spite of the fact that it has produced many detailed projections and plans and has had many meetings with the Department and the Housing Executive. One of the reasons given is that the cost per unit for the dwellings that this association hopes to rehabilitate would be more than £11,000. I return to the Essex Street development, which was sold to us on the basis that the expenditure would be £9,000-plus. Now each of these homes will cost in excess of £17,000.
Then we are told that it is quite likely that the RUC will require a larger station in this area. When we argued the case that there was a more suitable site for an RUC station on the Dublin Road, at the corner of Marcus Ward Street, where it would have access to two major arteries, it was argued that the Department of the Environment might want that for a car parking space. How one rejuvenates the inner city by building multi-storey or underground car parks is beyond me.
We have waited months for a decision on whether the police station is to be moved to Marcus Ward Street, thereby allowing the housing association to produce badly needed units in the Donegall Pass area, and whether the car park is to be moved just across the road or into


Bankmore Street. No one will take that decision. When someone eventually does take it—in 1980 or 1990—we shall be told that even though the police station can go into Marcus Ward Street the cost of rehabilitating the units that the association wishes to adopt in Salisbury Street and Hartington Street will be £20,000 of £30,000, and of course that will he out of reach.
I accuse the Department of the Environment of deliberately manipulating housing in the city of Belfast so as to disadvantage the Protestant and Loyalist community. The Government must redress that shameful situation. A new Administration is now in control—one in which our people are inclined to believe and trust. But the Government must produce the housing. We have waited for years and existed on nothing but promises.

2.57 a.m.

Mr. John McQuade: In the debate I have heard a lot of talk from other hon. Members about housing. I speak on the subject from experience. I live in a house without hot water, without a bath, and with an outside toilet. My constituency has been left a wasteland by the promise of more housing. We have nothing, and we now ask that the building of new housing should be halted and that, instead of knocking the old houses down, the authorities rehabilitate them by installing baths and hot water systems. That will cost a lot less than it is costing to put up houses that, in less than a year, need repairing.
One hon. Member said that it had taken six months for his constituent to get a repair carried out. I was dealing a week ago with a case where a repair still had not been carried out after two years. When I took the matter to the Housing Executive I had to ask my constituent to leave because the language of the person behind the desk was not fit to be listened to. The managers sitting in the back room do not have to face these problems.
I ask the House to look into the housing problems of Belfast, North, a constituency which the bulldozers have left a wasteland. All the streets from Clifton Park Avenue—what were known as the river streets, the Old Park Road—are a wasteland. There is no sign of building

being carried out. In Glencairn is an estate built by the Housing Executive, but the flats there are boarded up. When people come there for accommodation those flats have to be reopened. Vandalism is rife in the constituency of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). I am glad that the hon. Member is present, because in his constituency there are the Townsend flats, with no one living in them. To whom do people in that area go? They go not to the hon. Member for Belfast, West but to Johnny McQuade, who held no office either as councillor or Member of Parliament. There is the hon. Member for Belfast, West. Let him state now the conditions in which his constituents are living. But they went not to the hon. Member for Belfast, West but to McQuade. Now he has one block of flats in his area with no one living in them, and those flats have been vandalised. That is what we have in Belfast, West, but people there go to the hon. Member for Belfast, North when they want anything.
The hon. Member for Belfast, West mentioned Ballymurphy and Catholics. That was wrong of the hon. Gentleman. He should say straight out "Roman Catholics" and "I am a Catholic" Ballymurphy was 100 per cent. Roman Catholic at one time. New Barnsley, which I represented in the Stormont Parliament, was 100 per cent. Protestant, but the hon. Member for Belfast, West has control of that whole area now. How did he get control of it? The IRA.
At the start of the troubles, reports appeared in many papers to the effect that the hon. Member for Belfast, West took the credit for certain of the trouble in Belfast to take the weight off the people of Londonderry. There is the man who in this House talks about all this trouble. Yet he admitted starting it in Belfast to take the weight off the people of Derry. Let us get things straight. Let us admit that they are false as well as taking credit for what we have had to get the help of other people to do.
Generally I speak early, but I did not expect to speak as early as this, in the morning, and I propose to sit down. On the far side of the Chamber is my colleague, Mr. McNamara—I do not know his constituency—who was in my house with the former Home Secretary the right hon. Merlyn Rees.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is not the first time that the hon. Gentleman has spoken in this Chamber. I hesitate to interrupt a new Member, but I have pointed out that the hon. Gentleman must refer to hon. Members not by name but by constituencies.

Mr. Fitt: It is the first time that the hon. Gentleman has spoken without a script.

Mr. McQuade: The hon. Member on the far side of the Chamber—Mr. McNamara—did not have his car stolen in my constituency. He had his car stolen in the constituency of the hon. Member for Belfast, West, not mine. He left it at my door.
I cleared all the people from the flats which are vandalised.

Mr. Fitt: I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is speaking without a script for the first time in the House, but he must try to put his constituents' case to us. What is he trying to tell us? Is he trying to say that his constituents are worse off than those of any other constituency in Northern Ireland, or is he trying to imply violence, or the support of violence, by any other hon. Member?

Mr. McQuade: In answer to my friend—

Mr. Fitt: Not me.

Mr. McQuade: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman says that. It was a mistake when I said it.
The hon. Gentleman is the man who decided to start the trouble in Belfast to take the weight off the people of Londonderry. Those were his words, not mine.
I live as the people of North Belfast live. I shall never say that because I got a salary at Westminster I left them. I am living in a home that is the same as the homes of most of my people in North Belfast, with no bath, no hot water, no inside toilet. [Interruption.] I remember marching up the Antrim Road when the hon. Member for Belfast, West stood on the verandah of a council flat, waving his colours.
We have had enough of our conditions in North Belfast. I see the honest, loyal, hardworking people and want to give them something of what they are entitled to.

Mr. Fitt: The hon. Gentleman should tell us something about his war service.

Mr. McQuade: They know about it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot have this sort of exchange carried on across the Floor of the House. Has the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. McQuade) finished?

Mr. McQuade: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

3.7 a.m.

Mr. Wm. Ross: Class V in the order concerns housing. I intend to follow many other hon. Members into that subject.
The problem with talking about housing and the Housing Executive is that one is never sure where to begin or whether there is a beginning to the subject. We do not seem to be getting close enough to an end of the Executive to suit me.
The Government said in their memorandum issued with the Rowland report that the report made disturbing reading. When we listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford), I thought that we would all realise that that was one of the understatements of the decade. If what has been said not only in the report but about it and the criticisms that have been levelled at it are anywhere near accurate, the situation is far worse than the House yet understands.
One of the things to come out of all the criticism and talk about the report and the Executive is that the Executive has now been clearly exposed as a dinosaur in a china shop. It is a dinosaur that has been urged on by those who created it, those who are still acting as its guardians, who had little idea of what they were creating and what it has done and is still doing. I have no doubt that, like those ancient reptiles, the Executive will, in the fullness of time, pass away.
I believe that there are a series of preliminary movements in that direction. These are more fully seen in the new structure, which my hon. Friend accurately described as a reshuffle rather than a restructure, and in the sale of Executive dwellings, which are two fundamental changes. Efforts are being made to break up the Housing Executive into smaller units to make it more controllable, but


the difficulty is that even that limited movement towards a more reasonable structure has been halted by the freeze on recruitment to the Civil Service and public bodies.
I wonder whether the Government fully appreciate the effects of that policy. If an employee, even a fairly junior employee, of the Housing Executive leaves his job, it is not possible to replace him or to move employees horizontally within the structure. Everything has been stopped at the present stage and yet we expect the monster to operate. The Executive does not work very well anyway, but if we stop its operations in that way it will not work at all. I hope that Ministers will look seriously at that problem.
I understand that each new public dwelling in England and Wales costs about £14,500. I do not suppose that the average cost is less in Northern Ireland, and we have heard that many of the rehabilitation schemes have cost a great deal more than that.
The average cost of building the Housing Executive houses in Northern Ireland is certainly a good deal less than £14,500, though the market value is probably near that figure. I believe that a person should be able to own the roof over his own head, and therefore I always favour any move to give people that opportunity. I welcome the sale of council and Housing Executive houses.

Mr. Bradford: Is not any policy to encourage the sale of Housing Executive properties incomplete without more home loan funds being provided to enable a take-up of the opportunity?

Mr. Ross: My hon. Friend has made a point which I intended to raise later. He has saved me the trouble of doing so.
I wish to draw attention to some difficulties that seem to have arisen over the sale of council and Housing Executive houses. We were told in February by the former Minister in charge of housing that the district valuer would decide the price at which houses were to be sold.
Like any other sensible person, I assumed that that would be the market value, but the mass of documentation that has appeared on the subject makes clear that not only the cost of construc-

tion but the cost of any improvements that have taken place must be taken into account and that a house cannot be sold for less than that total sum.
I hope that the Minister will tell us what will be the selling price of houses. Will it be the market value? In some cases that will be less than the cost of construction and improvement. If we include the cost of general improvements in the selling price, why stop there? Why not include the cost of maintenance over the years? It is just as reasonable to include that cost as it is to include the cost of improvements.
I understand that there is a ceiling of two-thirds of the cost of a new house on the cost of improving an old house. There again, there seems to be a clash of opinion about what is the stated policy of the Housing Executive, as I understand the figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South. Perhaps the Minister will relate those figures so that we can give our constituents answers to the questions they bring to us.
Hon. Members have referred to the quality and standard of the work that has been carried out by or on behalf of the Housing Executive. My right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) drew attention to the difficulties of completing the rural cottage improvement scheme. What he did not mention is that all the easy houses were done first—those that were close to sewerage, to water suppy, to electricity supply. They could be done quickly, easily and cheaply. They were in the first two or three years of the programme.
We are now getting to the houses that are difficult, isolated and far from the basic amenities and possibly can never be connected to them. It is no wonder that they are now exceeding the cost limits. Have the Government taken that factor on board when putting limitations on the improvement programme of the Housing Executive, especially in rural areas? If we are now left with the more costly and difficult work to do on such houses, surely there should be some latitude in the expenditure allowed. There does not seem to be any willingness to put some elasticity into the rules that would bring these houses within the criteria of the programme.
Is the money available for loans for housing? I know that £3 million or £4 million is supposed to be made available by the building societies this year. Is that money to be available? Will there be enough money in the kitty of the Housing Executive? Can the Housing Executive process quickly enough the requests for loans not only to buy houses but to carry out private improvements? There seems to be a big backlog in all the financial considerations which meet an owner or a tenant or a prospective buyer when he questions the Housing Executive.
There are two categories of house about which I have had some misgiving in this context. They are the house specially built or converted for the disabled, and those which are old persons' dwellings. I believe that houses for the disabled can safely be sold because that problem will sort itself out in time. It will sort itself out because of the grants and the help that come from personal social services to those who need special facilities because of severe physical disablement or to families who have severely handicapped children. As these grants are available, I think that over a period those who are disabled or are members of a family with a disabled person can safely buy their own homes. Even if these houses are lost to the general public housing stock, I do not believe that there will be any great loss to the community. In any case, it is one that the community should be prepared to shoulder.
The other case, which is rather different, is that of the pensioner's house. This is a totally different problem from the social problem that is created by bad housing. The Government should be careful before they start selling off these houses.
There are a number of different types of houses serving as old people's dwellings which form part of the general stock of housing. Some of this housing takes the form of warden-controlled accommodation, some is attached to an old people's complex, such as we have in my constituency, in Limavady. These are purpose-built houses. Because people live longer, the problem of the old in our society will be of increasing importance. If we live long enough we shall all be old—[Interruption.] If the Government had been more helpful we could have

gone home at half-past 10. It is not our fault, and we do not particularly wish to be here at 3.20 a.m. discussing Northern Ireland.
To return to my point, pensioners' houses should be retained. There is a case to be made for the old in our society being looked after in this way. My experience of dealing with old people in my constituency is that they all want to live in a village if they cannot live with their friends and relatives in the countryside. They want to be in a group where there are people of their own age, and they want to be close to shops and amenities. Life is difficult for those who are aged 70, 80 or 90. Such people need help. I am prepared to accept the burden which housing for such people might place upon society while I am not prepared to accept that society has a duty to help provide a home for the working person.
The trouble about our housing is that it is not a complete package. Sometimes people tell me that there are never enough houses, and when I look at the waiting lists and listen to my constituents at surgeries I am inclined to agree with them. One thing is certain. We can sell the existing publicly owned housing stock only once. If there is a continuing need for new houses, what will happen to those who want new houses in five or 10 years' time?
Do we intend providing houses out of public funds or are we to move to the situation in which housing is provided by a subsidised private sector? I cannot see how else it can be done. Either there will be a subsidised private sector or a subsidised rented sector, or the circumstances of the individual will have to alter to the extent that it is possible for every man to buy or build his house at market price. That is a costly business. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the Government's long-term policy, if it has been worked out.
I turn to the problems of conversion to solid fuel—a topical subject in the light of today's statement. In all constituencies there are complaints about the cost of gas, electricity and coal. A study was recently carried out under the auspices of the new University of Ulster in Coleraine into the sums spent on heating Housing Executive houses in Coleraine. A number of houses there are heated by all three fuels—town gas, electricity, even at


Northern Ireland's inflated prices, and coal.
To the intense surprise of everyone, I think, the researchers found that the people who had bought coal had spent more money on heating their house than had those who were paying for gas or electricity. They found also that there were many more complaints from those whose houses were heated by gas or electricity than from those who used coal. The only conclusion to which I can come is that gas and electricity are not very popular for heating houses. In other words, there is something about them that the average man or woman in the street just does not like.
It could be that because those who use gas or electricity have continually to put money into a meter rather than give a tenner to the coal man, it annoys them more and they feel it more. It could be that because they are not spending quite the same sums they are not feeling as warm, that their houses are colder, or perhaps that they are not as well constructed. I do not know, but one thing of which I am certain is that the question of what people want in houses is clear. They want an open coal fire, and I do not know who on earth came up with the idea of building houses without an open fire. I understand that that policy has been reversed, and I hope that it stays that way, because it just does not work to be without an open fire and people do not want to know.
The other problem that has not as yet been mentioned is that of district heating, which, so far as I know, is always oil-fired. There have been instances in my constituency of some small part of that heating system breaking down, usually in January, and for two or three weeks every house on the estate freezes. Can the Minister give us a guarantee that in the coming winter, and in the winter after that, there will be a sufficiency of oil for district heating?
This is not a question of a single household, where there is usually an open coal fire and oil is being used for background heating; this is a question of houses that have no other means of heating. Can that guarantee be given, and what hope can the Minister hold out that people will have warm houses this year if they are

depending upon a centralised system? Something must be done, and done very quickly, if the Minister cannot give such a guarantee.
I should like to quote one set of figures relating to gas and gas heating. They appeared in a publication issued by the Central Gas Council and showed that in Britain in 1978–79 it took 7½ per cent. of a single retirement pensioner's annual pension to buy 330 therms of gas. In the same year in Belfast it took 17 per cent.; in Londonderry, 16½ per cent.; and in Coleraine, 15½ per cent., and all those figures for Northern Ireland are going up, and going up substantially.
The Minister has already said that the gas industry in Northern Ireland will disappear. I know that he has not used those words, but that is what it means. If the industry is to disappear, what will it do in the intervening period? How quickly does the Minister intend to let the gas industry die? When can we expect the first pay-offs? When can we expect the Londonderry Gas Company to shut up shop, because I understand that it will be the first to go? What will be done to try to ease the changeover for those who will be affected, and there are many of them? What will be done by the Department to help the Housing Executive, which has, I think, 12,000 houses which it was probably pressed by the Department to heat by gas?
That is a problem that will land on the Minister's desk probably next week in the light of what has been said today, and he had better have an answer ready because many people will be worried and affected by this decision. It is no use brushing it under the carpet any more. Gas is finished in Northern Ireland. People realise that it is finished. They will try to get out of it, and they want to see what the Minister will do to make their way out of it quicker and easier.
The next problem is the whole question of repairs and maintenance. There is simply no system that works. I will not weary the House with tales of woe. The Minister and the House have already heard enough. But any hon. Member for Northern Ireland who has any contact with his constituents would be able to talk from now until daylight about the criminal ineptitude, which is the only way it can be described, of the maintenance section of the Housing Executive. Senior officials


within the Housing Executive are able to relate the problem in accurate detail. But it appears beyond them to devise a system that works. They have not explained to anyone's satisfaction how the old councils were able to devise a system that worked well. It was a system in which the individual who made a mistake could be pinpointed and told to go and sort out the matter.
The Minister should start by sorting out the contractors employed by the Housing Executive, not only in maintenance but in renovations. There are more cowboy contractors in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The stories told by constituents who suffer at their hands are not believable. If they were not so tragic, they would make an excellent farce. One only believes what happens when one sees for oneself the evidence of the total incompetence of those concerned. Is it not long past time when the Housing Executive made a serious effort to draw up a list, something like the old King's Roll, of competent contractors who would be considered for contracts for repairs and maintenance?
The present system, when any fellow can call himself a contractor, slap in a price, take on a contract, rip the back out of a row of cottages and not appear for three months, is not good enough. I am not unaware of the difficulties. I am not, however, concerned with the difficulties this evening. I am looking for solutions. If the Housing Executive is not fit to do its job, someone else should be allowed to do it. The Executive has spent seven years trying to do the job. It has not done very well. It should buck up its ideas.
Another aspect of Housing Executive activities has been missed by hon. Members. I took some time to tumble to it. Under the Act setting it up, the Executive was barred from giving detailed information to public representatives whether they were councillors, Members of Parliament or members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The result is a lunatic system in which paid officials have no conception of the circumstances of applicants for houses. They can be told any story that a dishonest applicant likes to tell. Queue jumping is scandalous. Many constituents have told me that they were not good enough at telling lies, or that other people told more lies.
If the Housing Executive manager in every council area had to appear before a council meeting every month and lay before the council a report on repairs that had been carried out, the names of those who had been given the tenancy of a house, the number of points they possessed, those who were being considered, and the background of the list of applicants, I feel sure that 90 per cent. of the lies and nonsense would disappear overnight. Matters would be brought before people who know the situation on the ground, whereas the Housing Executive does not know the situation. It is not equipped to, it is not encouraged to, and its employees accept whatever is told them. Councillors will not, because, at the end of the day, they have to go back to the people who voted for them and ask "Have I done my job?" The Housing Executive does not, and it is overdue for something to be done. I hope that the Minister will see what can be done.
Above all, what worries me about the Executive is that it never seems to learn. Recently, it vested 28 acres of land at Strathfoyle, outside Londonderry, for a housing list of 19 people. No one has given me a satisfactory explanation yet. I do not really expect one from the Minister tonight. But I want him to write telling me why it was considered necessary to vest 28 acres of land for 19 new applicants. No one else seems to know. No one is able to tell the hon. Member for Londonderry, unless the Minister can He may say that there is a housing list for the city. So there is, but Strathfoyle is three miles outside, and not all that many people want to live there. My experience is that most people want to get out of it. It seems to be a crazy vesting order to make.
To back up my contention that the Executive never learns, I must tell the House of another situation that will land in all our laps in a few weeks. The Department of Finance rating division recently advised the Northern Ireland Housing Executive of a change in the rates payable in respect of dwellings for the year 1979–80. A copy of a letter which the Executive will be sending out in the next week or two has come into my possession. Since the Executive acts as the rate collecting agency, it will be


looking for these rates which are now owing. A lot of people living in Housing Executive property will get a nasty shock one morning soon when a letter arrives saying "We are sorry about the delay in notifying you of the increase, which has been beyond our control, but, as a result, we need another fiver". I do not think that the Executive and the rating division will be very popular. Why should this have happened? Why was the change in the rates not decided in time for it to be applied from the beginning of April of this year?
The insurance of housing has been touched upon obliquely by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South, who talked about frost damage during the past winter. This is a far bigger subject than I am able to deal with in this debate. But it is clear that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive has an insurance policy with the Eagle Star insurance company, that the Executive initiated a programme last year of insulating houses, that it employed all sorts of people to insulate the houses, that those people did not lag the pipes, that they threw the insulating material into attics, that as a result of the pipes not being lagged they froze, and that when the pipes burst very severe damage was done to many dwellings. Foolishly, many of the people concerned had not insured their property. Despite the fact that all this arose as a result of employees and contractors not doing their job properly—because if it had been done properly the pipes would not have burst—the Eagle Star group is now refusing to accept any responsibility.
I suppose that if I owned Eagle Star I would try to get out of my responsibilities, because they are bound to involve many millions of pounds. But what sort of damage is covered by that company with the Housing Executive, and what premium is paid? Is it a reasonable one? Does every individual who has suffered this damage—they are poor people—have to take the company to court to get satisfaction? I understand that one or two cases are pending, and that even if they succeed they cannot set a precedent. Every case will have to be fought individually on its own merits. That is abhorrent to me.

Mr. Dalyell: Does the hon. Gentleman understand that many insurance companies complain bitterly that because of the troubled events in Northern Ireland, premiums have risen considerably more than they might have done, affecting everyone, and that this causes resentment?

Mr. Ross: Since the hon. Gentleman will agree, I assume, that it is the responsibility of the House to keep peace and security in the United Kingdom, perhaps he will see that the blame lies here—not with the insurance companies, which naturally take a commercial view of the situation. Why has this House not restored law and order and peace in Northern Ireland? Why is the security situation such that insurance companies and other commercial undertakings find it impossible to operate at a profit? If the hon. Gentleman applies his mind to that matter, perhaps he will answer his own question.
Class V, Class VI(2)—recreation—and Class VIII—youth and community services—all touch on the problem of vandalism. I have here a report from the chief technical services officer of Londonderry council. He relates a horrifying catalogue of vandalism in the city, including the broken equipment in nearly every children's playground, and two exceptionally bad cases—the partial sawing through of the chains on a child's swing, and the hammering of nails into a slide. I do not know what sort of sick mind could think of doing that, but it happened. The total cost of vandalism in the city was £43,500—not counting damage to street furniture, litter baskets, the loss of various items of equipment, removal of broken glass from Play areas and damaged trees and shrubs. Most of it is on the west bank, as hon. Members from Northern Ireland will not be surprised to learn.
Is it impossible to find an answer to vandalism? Those who commit it generally are louts. The problem is great and increasing in Northern Ireland. I cannot speak for cities in England, Scotland or Wales, but it is causing increasing concern. It costs a great deal of effort and public money, and it negates the work of many dedicated people. I hope that the Government will consider this serious problem. If they do not solve the problem, they will throw money


down the drain. I do not like the thought of that. We are allowing children to suffer deprivation. It does no good to shut our eyes.
As part of the United Kingdom we must accept reductions in expenditure. Cuts may be necessary for the national good but one must ask a few questions about the attitude of those who complain of the sums spent in Northern Ireland.
If hon. Members are asked about this money, they should remind their constituents that when the Battle of Britain was fought there was no argument about the cost of Spitfires. When we were bombing Germany there was no argument about the cost of the bombs or the bombers. When we landed in Normandy there was no query about the cost of tanks.
When there is a war, money has to be spent. If the House would win the war in Northern Ireland, it would save much public expenditure.

3.47 a.m.

Rev. Ian Paisley: I endorse what has been said by many hon. Members about the hour at which we are called upon to discuss these important Northern Ireland matters. It seems that both ruling parties, when they come to office, decide that Northern Ireland business is better taken after midnight. When they become the Opposition they make their protests. Those of us who do not belong to the ruling parties—and never will—have to put up with the situation. It is ridiculous to ask hon. Members to discuss these important cises Members, he should set an example register my protest.
I can understand hon. Members from English, Welsh and Scottish constituencies deciding not to remain for the debate. If I were such a Member I should not be here at this hour. It ill becomes the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) to criticise Members and then to leave the Chamber for long periods. If he criticises Members, he should set an example and remain in the Chamber.
There has been a good attendance. I have attended such debates when only one Northern Ireland Member, one Minister and an Opposition spokesman have been

present. Although it is nearly 4 a.m., the debate is well attended. We are grateful to Ministers for attending to hear the exchanges. We are also glad that two Shadow Northern Ireland spokesmen have been here to listen to the debate.
I wish to deal with the Housing Executive. Time and again tonight the question has been asked: why is the Executive in such a mess? I suggest that the answer is simple. We have never had at the head of the Executive a person with expertise in regard to housing. The last director-general of the Executive came from control of the Royal Victoria hospital. How could a man who was an expert in running a hospital suddenly become expert in running the total housing of Northern Ireland? I understand that the next man served his time in the police and has now been appointed to police the Executive. I believe that it needs to be policed, so perhaps he will have a job in hand and his expertise will be helpful.
Let the House consider carefully the Rowland report, with all its weaknesses. When one comes to grips with it, one easily discovers that there was an attempt by the then Secretary of State not to face the facts of what was happening in Northern Ireland. As is recorded in the Official Report, I raised this matter in the Northern Ireland Committee. I elaborated on the terrible cost of de-bricking houses on the Moyard estate. This was not for the rehabilitation of those houses; it was simply for taking the bricks out, and the price of the material afterwards was an extra charge. Some of those houses cost from £5,000 to £8,000 to debrick—just to take the bricks out of the window. It was a ridiculous state of affairs, yet the Secretary of State, when questioned about it, said that it would be all right, it would come up at the Public Accounts Committee and an audit would be done, but in fact another attempt was made to sweep it under the carpet.
Two days after I exposed the matter in the House, two chief superintendents of the RUC visited my home. They said "We understand that you have a document in your possession which you ought not to have. This is a criminal offence, and except that you hand it over we shall press charges against you." I laughed at them and said "When you


get the Speaker of the House of Commons, where I read this document, to instruct me to hand it over to you, I shall be quite happy to do so", and there the matter ended. But the attempt was made to cover up the situation.
Eventually, there had to be an investigation. The tragedy was that it was not a public sworn inquiry. I pressed the House for a public sworn inquiry, as did my colleagues, but that was denied us. Consequently, papers could not be sent for, persons could not be sent for, Ministers could not be sent for, and hon. Members who had brought the matter to the House could not be sent for.
Then we had a series of fires. The office of one of the firms under scrutiny caught fire, and when documents were asked for they were all burnt and could not be produced. There was no evidence. We had a series of fires in the Housing Executive offices. They, too, caught fire. It seems strange that they all caught fire at the time when an investigation was under way.
When I pressed the director-general of the Executive to tell me whether he was still employing those building firms, he replied "Yes". I asked "Would the reason be that you cannot employ any other building firm in that area?", and he said that that would probably be the reason, because these firms controlled the area. They were controlled by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. There is no doubt about that. One of the leaders of the IRA was released from Long Kesh and two days afterwards he was in the Housing Executive playing his part in setting up the operation. These are the facts. The result is that there has been a costly inquiry. There the matter rests. That proves that the Executive and Ministers were not prepared to stamp out what was evidently a clever scheme on the part of the IRA to pocket large sums of public money.
The Executive stands indicted in the face of the people of Northern Ireland. I do not know of anyone who has any confidence in it. The hon. Member for Belfast, West said that some of us are opposed to the Executive for political motives while others are against it for practical motives. However, every public representative is against it because their credibility has been destroyed by it.
A constituent of mine had a slate come off his roof during the winter. The rain started to enter the property. He wrote to or telephoned the Executive to ask whether the repair could be carried out. The reply was "Certainly". A week passed and the job had not been done. He telephoned again to ask whether it could be done. Again, the reply was "Certainly". Another week passed, and nothing happened. My constituent wrote to me and I wrote to the director-general. I do not send letters to area managers, or anybody like that, because I have found that to be utter folly. I received a letter from the director-general assuring me that the job was done. I sent it to my constituent, who wrote to me stating "You are a liar and so is the Executive representative. Come down and see, my slate is still off." That type of incident has taken place over and over again.
In the most recent appropriation debate I referred to a young married woman who had had her first child. When the child was born the hot water system failed. She pleaded with the Executive to repair it. It did not do anything. As a result, I sought to assist. I was told that the system was repaired, or that it would be repaired. It was only after many weeks had elapsed—weeks that were inconvenient to my constituent and could have been harmful to the child—that the system was repaired. After raising the matter in the House, I received an amazing letter from the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), who was a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office while the Labour Government were in office. The hon. Gentleman wrote:
You referred to a Housing Executive tenant in Larne who could not prevail upon the Executive to repair her hot water system. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive has tried unsuccessfully to identify this case.
I had written I do not know how many times to the Executive and my agent in Larne had taken the woman to the Executive. The Executive had been telephoned on many occasions. After all that, it said that it could not identify the tenant.
That is the sort of muddle that one associates with the Executive. It can be multiplied time and time again. That is an example of the state of affairs that every hon. Member from Northern Ireland is suffering. The Executive tells


me that it has done a job and when I send a letter to the constituent I receive a reply to tell me that the job has not been done. That corrodes public confidence in the public representative, in the Executive, and in the whole system of the Executive in Northern Ireland. That is happening repeatedly.
Vast sums are being squandered by the Housing Executive on maintenance and repairs. The work is not being properly done. The housing authority decided that it would do some repairs to an estate outside the town of Ballymoney. All the material was taken to the site. It lay there for six months. Then it was suddenly removed. Work was not started for many months afterwards. I do not know who organises these matters, but such instances happen continually. There is a dreadful waste of public money by the Executive on repairs and maintenance.
The houses were badly constructed. The majority in my area suffer from damp. The Executive is responsible for the repairs, but it never admits that there is any damp in the houses. It puts over the story that the damp is caused by condensation. It tells the tenants that if they keen their doors and windows open there will not be condensation. I have been into homes in my constituency where, inside a week, the clothes in the wardrobes were covered with blue mould as a result of the damp running down the walls. However, the Executive manager tells the women "Keep your windows open, as it is only condensation." It is time the Executive took this idea aboard and started to do a proper job.
Public relations is another serious matter. When tenants go to the Housing Executive office they should be treated as citizens. No bad or vile language should be used to them. They should not be told "If you see your Member of Parliament it will not do any good." That is what is continually said to people who complain. As an elected representative, I resent very much any officials in the Executive giving to a constituent, who has repeatedly complained and said "I shall see my MP", a string of oaths and blasphemy, saying "That will not do you any good." That happens in many areas. It happens in my area repeatedly. I have had to write and complain to individuals who do that. The general public should

not be treated like that. On behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, I say that they should be treated as citizens should be treated. If they have a legitimate grievance, it should be dealt with properly. The Housing Executive is very much to blame in these matters.
The Executive's board decisions are not implemented. For instance, the former Minister responsible wrote to me about the question of the Doury Road estate in Ballymena, which I raised in the debate on the previous appropriation order. This estate has been allowed to run down. The Executive decided that it would have a general clean-up of the estate and spend £1 million on the 526 houses, which had been allowed to deteriorate terribly. To date nothing has been done. There has been no general cleanup. That estate is in a frightful mess—so much so that everybody on it is applying for a transfer and wants to get out. There is a blight upon it. Yet those are good houses and could be put into a good state of repair.
The Housing Executive board took a decision on the matter, which has not yet been implemented. Although that estate was built 20-odd years ago, I was amazed to find that the roads had never been adopted. They were never brought up to standard by the Executive, and, as they are not even adopted, when potholes appear in the road no one is responsible. The roads people say "It is not our responsibility", and the deterioration goes on.
Those are matters that the Minister responsible will have to take on board. He will have to see to it that when decisions are made by the Executive, those decisions are carried out, and are carried out promptly. He will have to see to it that the public relations between tenants and the Executive are put on a proper basis. I regret that the old system of a rent collector going round was dropped. When the rent collector went round and met the people and got the money, they could say "Here, sir, is a repair that needs to be done". When the rent collector went back the following month, he would be in great trouble if the work had not been done. Under that system action was taken, whereas today there seems to be no relationship between the area officers and the tenants of these houses.
There are many other matters that I could discuss tonight. One of them has already been touched on—the fact that the schemes affecting water, sewerage and the modernising of the houses seem to have come to a stop in many of the country areas. We had a push forward in North Antrim and the houses that were easy to service have now been done, but with the difficult houses there seems to be a hold-up. The tenants are promised that the work will start in October. October comes, the work does not start, and the tenants are told that it will start in the spring. Spring comes and they are then told that it will start in the summer. Soon they find that winter has begun, and the work is just postponed and postponed and postponed.
The Minister should get out all the plans that the Housing Executive has concerning the servicing of houses. There are still houses in the Executive's care which have no water, no light and no facilities. I know of some with only one door. They have no back door. Yet the strange thing is that the Housing Executive is always increasing the rents. The people ask "Why should we pay increased rent when we have no facilities whatever?" Some of them are even charged a water rate and they never have water in their houses. Those are the matters that cause deep contention among the tenants of the Executive.
I should like to turn now to some other matters. I regret that the information concerning the shipyard and the gas pipeline was put out in the way that it was. I am sorry that a statement was not made and that we did not have a fuller opportunity to question the Minister. I trust that in the future, when these important matters are brought before the House, they will be brought by means of a statement and not a written answer.
There should have been more time in which to consider the statement on energy put out today by the Government. What worries me about the statement is that it seems to me that the Government are intending to tie the whole of the energy supply in Northern Ireland to the electricity scheme. Electricity is to be the basic energy. As the Minister said, it is oil-generated energy, and we all know what is happening about oil throughout the world. There is an oil crisis. I wonder what plans the Minister has to adapt

the generators in Northern Ireland to coal generation. As the EEC has emphasised that the whole of Europe is to move towards more and more coal, what are the Government's plans in this regard?
If oil is to become scarce and even more expensive, electricity in Northern Ireland will rise in price also. The Minister explained that we have excess power production capacity already. Once Kilroot is operational we shall never be able to use all the electricity that we generate, but the price will still be very high.
Are there any plans to restore the connection with the Republic in order to sell electricity to the South and recoup some of the money involved here?

Mr. Giles Shaw: If the hon. Member studies my statement at greater length, he will see three points, among others. First, there is a commitment to seek ways and means of opening the connection with the South. We agree entitrely that that is an important source of consumption for the power generated at Kilroot—it comes on stream next year. Secondly, we have given an undertaking about the security of oil supplies. North Sea oil, if refined in the correct way, could be suitable for Kilroot. It would then be a matter of using one of those special United Kingdom resources to which the hon. Member is deeply committed. We have undertaken to monitor the price closely in the years ahead.

Rev. Ian Paisley: I am grateful for that intervention, but I stress that we are tying ourselves to electricity. I want to enter a plea on behalf of gas. The poorer community in Northern Ireland has always used gas. It will suffer with this change. Will the Minister explain how the changeover will go? What financial compensation will there be if all the gas fittings, gas fires and gas cookers have to be removed? Has the Minister considered importing liquid gas, thus retaining the gas industry? I understand that quite a lot of liquid gas is imported into parts of England from Algeria. Is there any possibility of saving the Northern Ireland gas industry in that way? That industry provides about 1,500 jobs. If the gas industry goes because of the expense of building the oil pipeline, those jobs will go too.
What representations have the Department and the Government made to the


EEC on this matter? The gas industry shop stewards' report states that they had a communication from the EEC Energy Committee saying that it would make a study of this matter. The European Investment Bank said that it would consider the case for a loan for a gas pipeline to Ulster if any approach were made. Has an approach been made? Surely, when we are paying money into the EEC and losing £1,000 million a year it would be a good thing to get some of the money back. One of the best ways of using the money when we got it back would be to build the pipeline to Ulster. Will the Minister tell us what is happening in that regard?
I should like to mention two other matters concerned with saving money. Money could be saved in various ways. I suggest that Enterprise Ulster could now come to an end. It is taking workpeople away from the Association of Landscape Contractors of Northern Ireland. Councils and other public bodies are using Enterprise Ulster as a means of getting something for nothing. The time has come for the Minister to close that organisation. There is work for all these people in their own trades with the Association of Landscape Contractors of Northern Ireland. There is no need for Enterprise Ulster to continue. A great deal of money could be saved if that organisation were brought to an end.
There is grave public concern about the Folk and Transport Museum, and especially about some of the vehicles that have been donated to the museum. They are rotting away in a field. Many people have expressed to me their concern about the museum. I trust that the Minister will look into that matter and will at some time make a statement on what is taking place in the museum.
Finally, I turn to education and the selection procedure. I have had much the same experience as the hon. Members for Belfast, West and Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford). Distracted parents have been to see me because of inconsistency in the system. It seems that there is no fairness. Justice is not done, and it is certainly not seen to be done.
We have made some progress with this Government, in that we have a Minister answerable to this House for hospitals, health and social services. Under the pre-

vious Administration health, social services and education were the concern of a Member of the other House. At least we have half of those matters back in the Commons. I hope that eventually we shall have them all back. I believe that important portfolios such as education should be the responsibility of Ministers answerable to the House of Commons. I hope that these remarks will be conveyed to the noble Lord in charge of the Department, because of the concern that fair play does not seem to be taking place regarding the selection procedure.

4.18 a.m.

Mr. James Molyneaux: I am not observing a ritual in placing on record our sense of frustration and irritation at what I can only term the bungling of the arrangements for this debate. I exonerate the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and his ministerial team, because they derive no more pleasure than the rest of us from engaging in this kind of operation at this time of night.
Last Thursday afternoon the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and I pleaded with the Government to alter their plans and to drop the Competition Bill, which did not seem to have a hope of getting anywhere, but we were told that we must have the Government's intentions made clear to the waiting public before going into recess.
Then we came to the operation of yesterday, between the hours of 4.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. when the Government retreated from that position. Some time after 7 o'clock we drifted into a position in which the Secretary of State for Trade, moving the Second Reading of the Competition Bill, could not even be bothered to make an opening speech. It was then decided that it was not important enough to come to a conclusion on it.
It is a disgraceful contempt of the House, of the representatives of Northern Ireland and, more important, of the Members from Great Britain who take the trouble to take part in our debates. With a little flexibility and common sense we could quite easily, even when the Government saw that they had run into trouble, have gone straight on to


Northern Ireland business at seven o'clock.
The Government business managers are not entirely to blame. I know that they tried hard to arrive at a more sensible solution. But they must stand up to those in high places who push them around. They must ensure that when we return after the recess we have no more of this nonsense.
Under Class IV, Sub-heading 2, I wish to raise a matter of which I have given the Minister relatively short notice. I refer to the recommendations of the Wright committee of inquiry into pay relativities for all the non-Home Department police forces, with particular reference to the pay of the Belfast airport authority police. It has been recommended that they should be placed on a pay relativity of 90 per cent. with the Home Department forces. The Ministry of Defence police will have 95 per cent. It is interesting to note that often their tasks are broadly similar to those performed by the authority police. Indeed, at Alder-grove they are operating on the same airfield, but on different sides.
The most startling contrast is to be seen in the recommendation that the British Transport Police should have a pay relativity of 100 per cent.—in other words, exactly the same pay scales as police forces throughout the United Kingdom. That does not make sense. I do not doubt that the British Transport Police are very efficient, but I doubt whether they are any more efficient than their counterparts at Aldergrove airport. They have that in common, but where they differ is in the degree of risk.
The security authorities in Northern Ireland, particularly those engaged in the administration of the airport, have succeeded in attracting the attention of the terrorists to the airport. In that they have been aided and abetted by the rather nervous and jittery British Airways aircrews in particular.
Yesterday morning there was a panic before I arrived at the airport. Someone had placed a real, imaginary or hoax bomb at the one entrance. The authorities have been warned about that time without a number. There was a delay of an hour and a half, which blocked not only access to the airport but the main

road leading north and south, bypassing Antrim.
The inevitable confusion had to be cleared by the airport police, together with their Army colleagues. During that operation, had it been a real attack, they would have been at least as much at risk as the British Transport Police. I do not see how one can possibly justify their not being put on a par in the matter of pay, as they are exposed to danger.
I understand that at all other airports in the United Kingdom policing is carried out by the constabulary for the area. Therefore, there seems to be no justification for telling the Belfast airport police that they will receive only 90 per cent. of the pay given to those serving at all the other airports thoughout the United Kingdom.
I hope that the Secretary of State and his appropriate Minister will take a much more realistic view of the importance of the role of the Belfast airport police than the Wright committee did when it came over for a few hours to look at the position at Aldergrove. I hope that the Government, having looked at the report, will make up their mind to see that justice is done.
When we had reason to believe that our debate might take place at a more civilised hour, I had intended to look in detail at the activity, or lack of it, by the Housing Executive, but that will keep for a future occasion. Suffice it to say that we recognise the scale of the problems of arresting the decline in efficiency of the Executive and beginning the long haul back to make it an effective body to serve the needs of tenants
We must not overlook the need to improve the morale of the staff of the Executive. Many unkind things are said about them by all Northern Ireland Members and it cannot be much fun for the staff always to be on the receiving end of the brickbats—complaints which are not of their making. By the nature of the structure in which they, like public representatives, are caught up, they are not in a position to do the job that many of them are only too eager to do. We must somehow solve the puzzle of turning the Executive into an authority that will achieve a significant number of its original objectives.
The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) asked a penetrating question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South. To an outsider, it might have been misinterpreted as a criticism of my right hon. Friend for the wealth of detail that he had provided to illustrate his various points. Perhaps I may add to my right hon. Friend's adequate reply by saying that most of the exercise in which we are engaged tonight is the inevitable consequence of the removal of real local government from Northern Ireland.
That proposition has been confirmed, consciously or unconsciously, by every hon. Member who has taken part in the debate. Every hon. Member has been diven to conclude, willingly or unwillingly, that many of the issues that we have been discussing—which we would not be discussing on other United Kingdom orders—can be remedied only when the representatives responsible to the electors of Northern Ireland are given the responsibility to match their ability and the opportunity to make decisions in the interests of those to whom they are accountable. That is a sobering influence.
Hon. Members from other parts of the United Kingdom who have taken part in our debate need not apologise for intruding. We welcome their participation and the increasing interest that they have shown in many Northern Ireland debates in this Paliament.
I can understand the irritation of those hon. Members at speeches, such as that of the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder), which sound as though all of us in Northern Ireland are always asking for more while never being prepared to take our share of responsibility.
That has never been the attitude of my party, which sets the maintenance of the Union above all else. While we ask for, and often receive, the same benefits as others, we have always been prepared to share the sacrifices demanded of our fellow British citizens. So it will remain.

4.30 a.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: It is not my intention to detain the House for a long time—

Mr. J. Enocn Powell: Again.

Mr. McNamara: —at this early hour. Certainly I do not accept the comment "again", muttered from a sedentary position by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), because he will be aware of the many points that his colleagues have raised about the Housing Executive, a matter upon which I barely touched—indeed, I doubt whether I mentioned it—earlier today when I illustrated the need to have extra time for this debate. We have now gone two hours beyond the time that the Government originally allotted for the debate, and that has enabled every hon. Member who wished to speak to do so. That is an important achievement of ours.
I believe also that it has demonstrated the reason why so many of us objected to the procedure that the Government proposed should be followed. We have had this, if not unique, at least unusual experience of having three Ministers speaking in the debate. That is something to be welcomed. We welcome the fact that they took the opportunity to deal with the various matters raised. particularly the industrial matters.
However, that in itself illustrates one difficulty of hon. Members. On an appropriation order covering a whole range of subjects that they might have wanted to raise, they were stymied on some of them because of an intervention by a Minister halfway through. That shows the need for separate times and separate opportunities to discuss, for example, the energy problem and the problem of the shipyard and industrial development generally. Nevertheless, the courtesy was there, and the whole House has appreciated it.
Having said that, I must say that I am concerned about the cuts that have taken place in the economy of the Six Counties and the cuts generally in public expenditure. I shall indicate one thing which I regret as being a very detrimental step. That is the decision of the Department of Education in the Six Counties to cut out the £2·1 million that had been allocated for the improvement of educational maintenance allowances for 16 to 18-year-olds, a scheme which many of us regarded as being perhaps one of the biggest steps forward to educational equality. Particularly in Northern Ireland, when one bears in mind the problems facing young people in the Six


Counties, that was a particularly bad decision to make.
It was only in Northern Ireland that the whole scheme was to go ahead under the Labour Government. There were to be pilot schemes in the rest of the United Kingdom, but in the Six Counties it was to be done at once. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), the former Secretary of State, had announced it, and my noble Friend Lord Melchett, the former Minister of State, had made the necessary arrangements to introduce it. The Government's decision not to go ahead with the scheme is particularly regrettable. Therefore, if it is possible for me, even at this hour, to find someone to join me, I shall seek to divide the House on this matter.

4.34 a.m.

Mr. Tom Pendry: I, too, do not intend to detain the House for long. I shall be as brief as possible, not least because I would like the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Gummer) to address the House on the riveting subject of pigs and psueudo-rabies, which I am sure is something that affects his constituency very much. I am sure that the House will want to hear about it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) and I wished to raise a number of points which have, however, been raised already by other hon. Members, so it would be wrong of me at this hour to go over them again. It should be said that when in Opposition many of those now sitting on the Government Benches said many things about these appropriation orders and how they should be simplified. I was responsible for replying to only one debate on these orders when a Minister. I took that criticism on board. In Government we were looking at ways of simplifying the debates by giving fuller information before the debates. I contacted the Minister of State's office last week to make that point.
When we last debated the appropriation order, on 7 March, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) said:
Last year, we had four Northern Ireland Appropriation orders—one in March, two in July and one in December. This is the first such order this year, and I wish to make one suggestion about the future presentation of the orders. It would be for the convenience of the House and of the Minister if we had

a greater breakdown on some of the items of expenditure in very large blocks. We have examples of more than £100 million in one block."—[Official Report, 7 March 1979; Vol. 963, c. 1404–5.]
That was a reasonable point to take on board. I hope that Ministers will note it.
A number of hon. Members have referred to the events of today. I believe that the Under-Secretary was less than his gracious self when he said that he did not feel that he should apologise to the House. I think that he ought to apologise very fully for the way in which he handled his statement today dealing with Harland and Wolff. When he did make his statement he was clear and concise, and we thank him for that. The way in which he went about it leaves a lot to be desired. Turning to the second statement today, dealing with energy, I hope that we shall be able to return to the subject and have a full debate, whether in the Northern Ireland Committee or on the Floor of the House. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues will join us in pressing for such a debate.
I know that the question of the communications gap developing between the Northern Ireland Office and this House has already been raised. Certainly this applies to the Opposition. The gap ought to be plugged quickly. On the Harland and Wolff point, the Minister of State said that the statement had gone to Northern Ireland Members and spokesmen on Northern Ireland affairs on the Opposition Benches. This information came in dribs and drabs during the afternoon. I received my statement at 6.50 pm, which, I am sure the Minister will appreciate, is not right.

Mr. Giles Shaw: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. It was certainly intended that all Northern Ireland Members, Opposition spokesmen, and others to whom we send documents of this kind, should receive the documents at the same time.

Mr. Pendry: I accept that apology.
The debate takes place against a gloomy social and economic background in Northern Ireland. The Budget, the announcements of the Secretary of State for Industry, and the leaks from the Cabinet cannot spell good news for Northern Ireland, or anywhere else for


that matter. There are also the consequences of today's statement for Harland and Wolff. It is not surprising that there is a great deal of uncertainty in Northern Ireland. We have to analyse more fully what lies behind some of the Government's intentions.
The number unemployed is 63,000, or 12·9 per cent. of the male working population. The prospect of the restriction on cash limits and cuts in public sector expenditure will add greatly to that. We have already seen cuts in many areas of industry, but I should like to mention one aspect that has not been mentioned—the temporary employment subsidy.
Only this week I heard of the closure of a company which last year received £180,000 from the Government and employed 200 persons. That is one of many examples that I could give, and I therefore wish to take the opportunity of raising within the confines of the appropriation order some of the problems that exist. I have been in the hot seat that is now occupied by the Under-Secretary of State—the hon Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart)—and therefore I do not expect him to reply in detail to many of these points. We have given him notice of the general areas for discussion, but I hope that he will reply as fully as he can—I am sure that he will—to some of the specific points.
On Class II, I should like to raise what may appear to the Minister to be a trivial matter, but I assure him that it is not. Is the Work Study Advisory Service to be fully financed by the Government? This service has done a great deal to minimise the number of industrial disputes. Indeed, it has been helpful generally in industrial relations. I think that the Department of Manpower Services would accept that it is helpful not only to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions but to that Department. We hope that this valuable service to industry will be financed fully by the Department to a realistic figure, namely, £26,500. Perhaps the Minister will reply to that specific point, if not tonight, on another occasion.
Another question that has been raised during the debate relates to Enterprise Ulster. What of its future? Some hon. Members have been critical of this enter-

prise, but we on the Labour Benches are not. We understood that a new board was about to be set up about two months ago, but as yet we have not heard whether it is to be set up. This is something that should be spelt out. When will we have this new board? What of its future? When will it be able to get down to doing some of the valuable training that it has done in the past, especially for young people, many of whom have been retrained in valuable employment following that training?
Before I deal with Class V, I should like to deal with the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford) about the Rowland report. I believe that if he were to re-read the report he would find that there was no way in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) could be condemned in the way that he was by the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will re-read the report and that when he has done so he will write to my right hon. Friend and apologise in the usual way.

Mr. Bradford: The report specifically states that whilst money may have found its way into the hands of illegal organisations, it was not the deliberate intention of anyone involved in the formulation of those contracts. I accept that, and I have said nothing more than that. What I went on to say was that the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) could not have been so naive as to ask for the release of one gentleman, who had already latched on to the idea of the corporation, without realising the risk involved. One has to choose between naivety and connivance.

Mr. Pendry: I do not wish to enter into a dialogue, but the impression given was an unfortunate one. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will re-read it. I will re-read it and between us we can perhaps come to a satisfactory conclusion.
I agree with a great deal of what the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said about the working of the Housing Executive. I welcomed particularly his remarks about the need for a direct labour scheme. We need a bit of Socialism injected into the Executive. I am glad that such remarks came from that quarter of the House.
I would like to ask the Minister some specific questions. What are the Government's intentions on the sale of council houses? I hope that this issue will be spelt out much more clearly. The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) said that he wanted to know, like us, what the criteria would be. We were criticised in Government for not selling council houses, but we always contended, I am sure rightly, that this was in line with our general policy in the United Kingdom and that we would not sell council houses where there was a demand for houses to rent. I was glad that the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) agreed with the stance that we have always taken, but we would like to know the Government's view on the matter.
We would also like to know the extent of the waiting lists. I am sure that we will be returning to this subject. We would like to know details of the lists, area by area. We would like the Government to know our clearly defined view on the issue.
Because the Labour Party has recently left office, we should not hide from the fact that we made some mistakes. Housing matters should be debated much more on the Floor of the House and Ministers should not appear to hide behind the Housing Executive. I use the word "appear" advisedly, but this is such an important issue that Ministers should be able to stand their corner in the House on specific housing issues.

Mr. Rossi: I wonder whether it occurs to the hon. Gentleman, as it occurs to me, listening to the points made by hon. Members, that many of the criticisms of the Housing Executive could be made of local authorities up and down the United Kingdom. They are very common complaints.

Mr. Pendry: That is right. The complaints are common to every hon. Member of this House.
Class VIII deals with education. I believe that Northern Ireland Ministers have been caught up in the doctrinal stance on comprehensive education adopted by many Conservative Members. I can be forgiven perhaps for taking a different stance as the Member for the largest constituency in the metropolitan district of Tameside. I do not want to

enter into that issue. But Ministers might reflect on what were perhaps their hastier judgments when they came into office. Lord Melchett worked hard towards achieving a fairer system of education and took great pains to see parents, teachers and all concerned in education in Northern Ireland. The Government would be ill advised to upset the hard work that has already taken place.
Again, I wish to ask some specific questions. Before the Government made their statement on secondary education, did they consult the teachers' unions? I do not believe that they did, and I should like to hear from the Minister whether they did, because, if they did not, in my view they made a very big mistake.
Will the education and library boards have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they can implement a system of comprehensive education? This would be in line with the Education Bill that is going through the House at the moment, and I do not see why the people of Northern Ireland who wish to have comprehensive education should be denied it.
What is the position of the under-fives and the programme that was in the process of being administered? What is the programme now? Will the aim of this Government, like the last, be to double the number of nursery and playgroup places?
I return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) about 16 to 19-year-olds. This was a very important measure, and it would have encouraged a great many youngsters to stay on at school. It is a retrograde step on the part of the Government to divert from that policy.
As for Class IX, what is the Government's position with regard to the programme for the physically handicapped? The hon. Member for Belfast, West stressed that Northern Ireland was far behind the rest of the United Kingdom in implementing the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. It is far behind in Northern Ireland in providing lifts, baths, ramps, and so on, for disabled people. Following a survey by Outset, the hopes of the disabled in the Province have been raised, and the Government must not dash those hopes as a result of any hasty decision.
As for home helps, also in Class IX, the appropriate Minister in the previous Administration was having meaningful talks following the Central Personal Social Services Action Committee's report with a view to implementing its main proposal, which was to ensure that the means test was dispensed with completely. For many reasons, it was very cost-effective, and I should have thought that that would appeal to Government supporters. It was felt—indeed, it was proved conclusively—that it was as costly for the Government to administer home helps by way of a means test as it was to do away with the means test. I do not know whether that has been thought through by the Government, but I hope that we shall have an answer soon, because it is very important to keep a number of people out of normal institutions by helping them in this way in their homes.
There are many questions to which we shall return as the weeks go by, especially on the effects of this Government's policy on the social and economic development of the Province. We shall be pressing the Government very hard in a number of areas. However, I think that it is sufficient for the time being to put the questions that I have to the Minister, knowing that he will do his best to reply to them.
We welcome the way in which this Government's Northern Ireland team has turned out for this debate. I join all those who have praised the respective Ministers. We started by being critical, but we have to admit that they have proved to be a good team tonight, and we hope that this is not just a one-off occasion.

4.55 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Philip Goodhart): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry). I note his enthusiasm for simplification and assure him of my conversion to that cause.
Most speeches in the debate reflected the fact that in the 10 weeks since I came to the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland virtually every hon. Member has been in touch with me, directly or indirectly, about the management, maintenance, repair and provision

of public authority housing in his constituency.
The Housing Executive plainly has few friends in the House. The fact that the debate, despite its late—in some ways deplorably late—start has gone on longer than any similar debate that I can remember shows the depth of feeling on the matter. But, to be fair, we must remember the problems of the Executive. The first is its inheritance, which the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) spelt out vigorously. In too many areas, this means the problem of multi-deprivation: the grim statistics reflect the grim conditions.
About 40 per cent. of the housing stock requires replacement, improvement or repair. One house in five is unfit or stands in an area of unfitness. One house in four—such as the home of the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. McQuade)—lacks at least one basic amenity, while 17 per cent. of all houses are overcrowded. Few people have a kind word to say about the organisation of the Housing Executive, but since its formation in 1971 it has had to tackle these dreadful conditions while trying to weld together an efficient central organisation from no fewer than 65 predecessor authorities.
Then there is the problem of violence. Northern Ireland Members are only too well aware of the statistics of destruction, which have grown over the last 10 years, and they still have a savage impact. About 30,000 houses have been damaged by terrorist activity, 12,000 families have taken to squatting and 60,000 people have been forced to move.
The effects of violence have made many of the underlying housing problems much more difficult to solve. If, for example, it had been possible in Belfast to move overcrowded families in one part of the city into empty houses in other parts of the city, the housing problems would have been much more manageable. If the Executive's officers had not then to contend with the problems of squatting and rent strikes, time and effort would have been available to cope with other management problems.
If paramilitary influences had been absent, the Executive and the Northern Ireland building industry would have been able to make more rapid progress at lower cost. But the Executive has had


to operate against the background of these harsh realities.
Where it has fallen short of acceptable standards, it is right that it should be criticised here since, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr Powell) and many others have said, this House is the only political forum in which it can be brought to account. We can blame the Housing Executive for failures of contracting procedure or of inadequate supervision. We should not blame it for the terrible results of terrorist destruction.

Mr. Dalyell: Does the Minister have any figures for the cost of housing desstruction in the last decade, or is it unrealistic to ask for the figures?

Mr. Goodhart: It is unrealistic to ask for the cost of the destruction of 30,000 houses. However, few of those houses could be replaced for less than £14,000. To arrive at a replacement cost, one has only to multiply 30,000 by £14,000. It is a substantial cost.
This debate takes place in the shadow of the report of the Rowland Commission, which was appointed about 15 months ago
to enquire in the light of the allegations affecting the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, into the placing and management of contracts and the payments of grants by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and to report thereon".
Briefly these allegations, which were repeated today by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford), were that a considerable amount of public money went astray, that building firms controlled by the IRA were set up to carry out the work and charge exorbitant rates, that the Provisional IRA had organised fraud on a large scale to swindle the Housing Executive out of considerable sums of money, and that both the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Government were aware of the fraud but for reasons of political expediency took no action.
As hon. Members will be well aware, the Commission found that a considerable amount of public money did indeed go astray, but the Commission was unable postively to substantiate the allegation that building firms controlled by members of the IRA had been set up specifically to defraud the Government or the Executive. The Commission could find no

truth in the allegation that the Housing Executive and the Government of the day were aware of the fraud but did nothing because of political expediency. In other words, the report found that there was muddle rather than conspiracy.

Mr. Dalyell: The Department must on this occasion have some estimate of the figures we are talking about. What is the extent of the fraud?

Mr. Goodhart: I shall come to that in a few moments.
The Commission finds that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive did not deliberately stuff money into the pockets of the Provisional IRA, but it did, in a manner of speaking, negligently scatter money on the pavement of Belfast and, to a lesser extent, of Londonderry, and Provisional IRA members undoubtedly were among those who scooped it up.
Some hon. Members, notably the Members for Belfast, East, for Belfast, South and for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), have suggested that the report is a whitewash and that there should be another committee with greater powers to inspect the evidence yet again. But Judge Rowland himself emphasised that lack of powers to compel witnesses to appear had not in fact interfered with the course of the inquiry. Frankly, I doubt that it really would do much good at this stage to hold another inquiry, and I have no conceivable interest in presiding over a cover-up of an event that took place when we were in Opposition.
I am prepared on occasion to believe in the existence of plots and the weakness of mankind, but when I read of the administrative shambles that existed in West Belfast, I do not detect the hand of Machiavellian cunning but I do detect manifestations of Murphy's law, which, as hon. Members will recall, says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Now we must consider the cost of yet a further investigation. The amount of money wasted or overspent in West Belfast and Londonderry cannot be measured with absolute precision, but an optimistic reading of the Rowland report suggests that the figure is just over £1 million, while a pessimistic interpretation of the same evidence produced in the report could put the cost much closer to £1½ million.
But the direct cost of the Rowland Commission itself was just under £¼ million, and the indirect cost in terms of time spent by officials and others concerned in preparing material evidence could add at least another £100,000 to this figure.
Then we have to remember that, apart from the Rowland Commission, there have also been at least three other investigations into the more important allegations that have been made. In other words, we have already spent £½ million looking into a waste of money that certainly does not exceed £1½million. A full judicial inquiry could easily double that cost, and I doubt that it would at this time, after all these months and years, produce mach of importance that was new.
In my view, a line must now be drawn under these unhappy events.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) for referring to the morale of members of the Executive staff. We are inclined to forget that they read the brickbats that are thrown at them. Most of the staff are only too anxious to serve the public to the best of their ability. A line must now be drawn under these unhappy events. We must learn our lessons, remedy weaknesses and identify responsibility. The Government are determined to do all that, but as for investigation enough is enough.
Since I first read the Rowland report I have taken three substantial steps. First, I have started a review of the controls which the Department of the Environment exercises over the Executive. This is a particularly difficult issue as I have to balance the need to ensure adequate control over the Executive's substantial expenditure of public funds against the fact that statutory responsibility for housing services rests clearly on the Executive. As the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said, it may be necessary to redraw the boundary between the twin responsibilities of the Department and the Executive, especially as regards answerability in the House.
I do not want to waste scarce administrative and professional staff resources in checking the work of other staff. There is a balance to be achieved which should make the Executive clearly and publicly

accountable for its own activities within a framework approved by Ministers.
The second step that I have taken is to start a study of the resources available to the local government auditor in examining the Executive's work. The right hon. Member for Down, South paid particular attention to that. The auditor's role is vital. Hon. Members will know that the auditor has often been effective in the past in identifying weaknesses in the Housing Executive's administration. It is essential that the auditor has adequate resources to enable him to oversee all major aspects of the work of the Executive.
The third step that I have taken is to discuss the Rowland report with the chairman and vice-chairman of the Executive. The Executive is ascertaining whether it can recover any of the money that has been overspent. It is reviewing the guidance that is given to staff in cases where there may be links between members of the Executive's staff and contractors. The Executive is examining the management of contracts, which is the major continuing weakness pinpointed by the Rowland Commission. We are considering proposals that have been put to me by the chairman and vice-chairman as a matter of urgency.
Finally, I note that virtually all those directly concerned with the events
described by the Rowland Commission are no longer employed by the Executive. For all practical purposes, there is a new management team in control. A new chairman has been in office for only a few months.
A new chief executive has been appointed as full-time vice-chairman. As the hon. Member for Antrim, North reminded us, Mr. John Gorman had substantial relevant experience as chief of security of the British Overseas Airways Corporation. In that job he once stamped out a bullion-smuggling gang. I do not suppose that there are many bullion-smuggling gangs in the Northern Ireland Housing Executive at this moment, but it must be an advantage that the new chief executive should have had firsthand experience of security problems and procedures. Another important change is that the personnel management side is being strengthened under a new director of personnel.
Much of the Rowland report dealt with many of the problems arising from repair, maintenance and rehabilitation contracts. Tonight the problems arising from those contracts were touched upon by virtually
all Members from Northern Ireland. In the past 10 weeks at the Department of the Environment I have become very conscious of the many criticisms about the Housing Executive's record in maintaining its houses. It is an issue which seems to unite all shades of political opinion and all parts of Belfast.
Yet we must place this problem in perspective. It is a perspective that is well known to all Members representing constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. The Executive now owns some 200,000 houses of varying age and condition. It is fair to say that some of the former local housing authorities left the Executive with a legacy of badly designed and poorly maintained homes. The Executive has to deal with some 350,000 repair orders per year. Its annual budget for repair and maintenance is over £29 million. It is difficult in this area to get a precise, objective measure of efficiency, but available figures show that in Northern Ireland the cost of maintenance stands at £137 per house per year, which is not far out of line with the £133 per house per year which is spent, on average, by local authorities in England and Wales.
The right hon. Member for Down, South may be glad to know that a committee chaired by a member of the Executive's board has been considering in detail ways of dealing more effectively with all aspects of maintenance. I shall be reviewing with the Executive the staffing and financial implications of a greater effort in maintaining and repairing its own houses.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to direct labour in this field. In other local authority areas this has not been an unqualified success. I hope that there will be more success as a result of the reorganisation which is now under way and which I do not think will be the mere reshuffle which the hon. Member for Belfast, South described.
There is to be devolution of extensive powers to six regional controllers. The six regions have been defined, the six regional controllers have been appointed, and their staffs are being built up. When this reorganisation is complete, it should

offer substantial benefits to the public. I believe that the reorganisation of the Executive's work will enable the Executive to respond more quickly and effectively to the repair requests of tenants.
The hon. Member for Belfast, East asked for an in-depth inquiry into this aspect of the Executive's work. I believe that the top priority should go to an attempt to get on as quickly as possible with the reorganisation recommended by earlier inquiries, rather than holding yet another inquiry into this aspect. I will write to the hon. Member on the four specific constituency points that he raised.
As several hon. Members have reminded us, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive faces a major challenge in upgrading its older estates and dwellings. This is costly work and, as the hon. Member for Belfast, North so forcefully pointed out, there can be absolutely no doubt that in many—indeed, in most—areas rehabilitation is more popular with local residents than clearing and rebuilding. I am not surprised that some of the most enthusiastic staff members I have met on the ground have been engaged in rehabilitation work.
The Housing Executive proposes to spend £17 million in 1979–80 on this work, and I note that full-scale rehabilitation can cost from £10,000 to £12,000 per dwelling. In Belfast the Housing Executive plans to start work on improving 1,500 homes for long-term use and 1,000 homes for short-term use.
Then there is the important question of the sale of Housing Executive houses, referred to by many hon. Members this evening. We have made it clear that the Government policy on the sale of council houses should apply in Northern Ireland in much the same way as it does everywhere else in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, I have discussed these matters with the chairman and other members of the Housing Executive, and I am exceedingly grateful for his cooperation in giving effect to the overall principles of Government policy as quickly as possible. I am considering the issue raised by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) as to what the sale price should be where the market value after discount falls below the cost of providing the house. I hope that we shall have an early answer on that. Discussions are in hand between the


Housing Executive and the Department of the Environment regarding the detailed implementation of the policy.
Clearly such a substantial change will have to be implemented on a phased basis. But I am sure that an extension of home ownership will have major benefits. I am sure also that home ownership is a stabilising influence in our society and that we need stabilising influences in Northern Ireland. I believe also that our policy can help the Executive to concentrate more of its efforts on those in greatest need.
Some, particularly the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), would argue that our policy should not be applied to Northern Ireland because of the special circumstances prevailing. But I believe that these special circumstances underline the importance of applying the Government's policy to Northern Ireland. In the Province a much smaller proportion of people own their own homes than is the case in England and Wales or, for that matter, in the Republic of Ireland. At the same time, the reluctance of building societies to make loans in many areas of Northern Ireland because of the threat of violence has undoubtedly thwarted the desires of many potential home owners in the last decade.
I also know that in Northern Ireland, as in other parts of the United Kingdom, those people who move into good Executive houses very rarely move out of their own free will. Immobility already exists, so that our sales policy should not diminish the chances of people queueing up for alternative accommodation, although I concede that in Belfast, West and other areas some of the adverse conditions will deter people from attempting to purchase their own homes.
I want many of the vacant houses which the Executive owns to be offered for sale. Many of these houses are described as difficult to let and have been badly vandalised. I believe that some at least of these houses could be an attractive proposition for young couples who are prepared to use their own efforts to make their homes suitable to live in.
I shall be discussing with the Executive, therefore, the introduction of a homesteading scheme. Meanwhile I can assure hon. Members that I am as worried as they are about the rapidly escalating

cost of heating in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Londonderry referred to district heating schemes. Certainly in recent years the service that these have provided has too often been expensive both to the tenants and to the taxpayer. The hon. Member spoke of the availability of oil in the winter. That, I can assure him, is not our most pressing concern. There should be ample supplies. Our major anxiety is the cost of those supplies.
I have some responsibility in the House for education. The hon. Members for Belfast, West, Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) and Antrim, North have referred to the problems of selection in education. The immediate priority is to settle arrangements for transfer in 1980–81, and my noble Friend is giving this matter urgent consideration. Consultations are taking place with all interested parties. I assure the House that my noble Friend is spending more time on this matter than on any other single problem in education. Let us hope that all the children of Northern Ireland, regardless of the secondary schools to which they are transferred, will grow up in a society more peaceful and prosperous than the one that we have at the moment.

Mr. Dalyell: The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr Shaw), said that figures would be given of the expenditure of public funds per head in Northern Ireland compared with Wales, England and Scotland. Does the hon. Gentleman have the figures available?

Mr. Goodhart: Those figures are not available at the moment. I can give rough figures. With England as a base at 100, Wales is 110, Scotland 140 and Northern Ireland 150. I should not wish the House to regard those figures as being in any way precise.

Mr. Dalyell: I thank the Minister for that information. I hope now that hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder), who spoke earlier in the debate, will not continue along the line that Northern Ireland is getting a bad deal.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft Appropriation (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979, which was laid before this House on 4 July, be approved.

NORTHERN IRELAND (FIREARMS)

5.34 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Philip Goodhart): I beg to move,
That the draft Firearms (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979, which was laid before this House on 3 July, be approved.
Hon. Members will be aware that the firearms law operating in Northern Ireland was last amended in 1975. This order is introduced to effect desirable changes in the law before consolidation, which is due shortly. A proposal for a draft order was published on 7 November last and copies were sent to interested organisations, including the Shooting Federation for Northern Ireland and the Joint Shooting Committee for Northern Ireland. The comments received have been taken into account in preparing the draft before the House.
Article 3 of the order translates all references to a chief superintendent in the Firearms Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 into references to the Chief Constable. This will place responsibility for the administration of the Act fairly and squarely on the Chief Constable. Paragraph 21 of schedule 1 allows him to delegate functions as he sees fit, enabling him to organise the administration in the most efficient manner.
Article 4 empowers the Chief Constable to grant short-term firearms certificates free of charge to persons resident outside the United Kingdom who wish to bring firearms into Northern Ireland for sporting purposes, and sets out the criteria to be applied by him in such cases. Holders of such short-term firearm certificates will be enabled to bring firearms through Great Britain en route to Northern Ireland. Frequent visitors to Northern Ireland and cross-border farmers may still wish to purchase full firearm certificates, and provision is made for them to do so. In the published proposal, provision was made for a fee of £2 for a short-term firearm certificate, but the various shooting organisations felt that no charge should be made and we have met them in this.
The law as it stands does not allow registered firearms dealers to sell ammunition other than at their registered places of business. It has been found that com-

petitors at shooting events exhaust their lawful entitlement to ammunition very quickly, and journeys to dealers' registered premises are not always practicable. It is proposed, therefore, to allow registered dealers to deal in ammunition at such events, but only if they have first obtained from the Chief Constable a special permit to do so. Article 5 gives effect to this proposal.
It is unlawful for a firearms club to operate without first obtaining from the Secretary of State an authorisation under the Unlawful Drilling Act 1819. In view of the proposed consolidation of firearms law, the opportunity is being taken to bring all aspects of firearms control under the one legislative umbrella. Article 7 seeks to do this.
Article 8 clarifies the right of the Police Authority to acquire firearms on behalf of the police without having to possess firearms certificates.
In Great Britain, firearm certificates are not required in respect of most air weapons, whereas in Northern Ireland a firearm certificate must be obtained before any air weapon may be possessed or acquired. This creates difficulties for Great Britain residents who wish to bring their air weapons to Northern Ireland; they must first obtain a Northern Ireland firearm certificate—valid for three years—at a cost of £14. This is somewhat anomalous, in that holders of British firearm certificates or shotgun certificates may bring the more lethal weapons covered by those certificates to Northern Ireland at no cost. It is proposed to allow owners of air weapons in Great Britain to bring their weapons to Northern Ireland without obtaining a firearm certificate, and article 9 so provides.
Articles 6 and 10 are purely technical amendments.
This is a non-controversial order. It makes no very sweeping changes, but as a result of it firearms users should find the law clearer and more consistent.
I trust that hon. Members will approve the order.

5.40 a.m.

Mr. Wm. Ross: The explanatory note at the end of the order says:
This Order makes various amendments to the Firearms Act (Northern Ireland) 1969. It transfers the functions of chief superintendents


under the Act to the Chief Constable and enables the Chief Constable to delegate his function under the Act.
I thought that that was the present position and that the Chief Constable carries out all the functions that used to be carried out by county inspectors and, latterly, chief superintendents. When was the change made, and under what legislation has the Chief Constable been exercising those functions in the past few years? If no change has been made, why is he carrying out the functions?
I ask that question as one of a series. The Minister has cleared up one or two things that were troubling me, but it seems that amendments made to the Firearms Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 were not well thought out. We are now straightening out previous mistakes, and that does not say much for those who drafted the amendments and it calls into question the capability of those in the firearms section of the RUC, from whom, no doubt, all the amendments originated. That pleases me down to the ground because I do not agree with what they are doing anyway. I believe that the basis of firearms legislation is wrong.
The issuing and cost of certificates has been a bone of contention in the House on many occasions among those of us who shoot. We recently stopped an increase in the cost of a certificate. No doubt we shall pay dearly for that in the next round. The order gives us another opportunity to state our view that the sooner the question who is to have a firearms certificate is taken away from the big empire that has been built up in police headquarters and transferred back to chief superintendents in the divisions, the better for all concerned.
The whole structure is a colossal waste of money. We are keeping in jobs a number of people who are not needed. Everyone knows that the man who really makes the decision is the local sergeant who knows the individual concerned. There may be some difficulty in big towns and cities, but there is none in 95 per cent. of Northern Ireland.
Section 49 of the 1969 Act refers to regulations under which county inspectors had to carry out their duties under the Act. Are there any regulations covering how the Chief Constable carries out his duties? If so, I shall be obliged if I may have a look at them—and so would

many of my constituents who have been refused firearms certificates for no good reason.
The Chief Constable is continually refusing certificates for bullet-firing weapons, even those of small calibre. He refuses to allow people to have more than one weapon that discharges a projectile, and he includes air rifles in that category. Unfortunately, he has been consistently upheld and supported by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in that foolish, irresponsible and frustrating attitude. I do not like criticising the Chief Constable. In other areas, he has done a good job, but on this issue the police and the Government have got it wrong and are going bull-headed down the wrong path.
I could not understand why sections 4 and 5, dealing with the importation of firearms, were included in the principal Act since that subject is covered by section 13. From what the Minister has said, it would appear that the intention is now to clear up the problems which were being created by farmers living on the border. Are they the only group of people actually affected by the order? Everybody else who might be affected is covered by previous legislation.
I note, too, that, while in the past one was supposed to give up one's weapon for a ballistic test, no penalty was laid down if one did not. For the first time, a penalty is being laid down. But that does not really matter very much because, under the 1969 Act as amended, all the Chief Constable had to say was "If you do not give it up, I will withdraw your firearms certificate". Now we are adding a fine of £400 or so to that sanction if a person is awkward.
Was it wise to put the Chief Constable in the position of being an absolute dictator in this matter? I suppose that in the end it comes back to the Northern Ireland Office or even the RUC itself. They did not do their job properly in this respect and therefore the individual suffered because his right to hold a firearm was put at risk by the legislation.
Article 8 clears up any misunderstandings that there might be over the right of the Police Authority to purchase weapons. If the police were not entitled to purchase weapons, why did they do it?


Surely this matter must have been thought about. If not, why not? Weapons are an important part of the policeman's lot in Northern Ireland, despite the Hunt report of long ago—so long ago now that most people seem to have forgotten about it. For a month or two we had an unarmed police force; now it is better armed than it ever was.
But it seems to have been shortsighted of those who set up the Police Authority, with all the pomp and ceremony that went with it, when, at the end of seven years, we discover that it is not clear whether it is entitled to buy weapons for the policemen to shoot the IRA men with. It calls into question the ability and the intelligence of those who were behind the whole affair.
When I looked at the provision relating to the air weapon problem, I was surprised, but I understand from what the Minister has said that that problem is being covered now, because the order maintains the position that exists for shotgun holders from Great Britain under the amended 1969 Act. We are grateful for that. But I hope that it does not cover an individual coming over to Britain for, say, three or four months, buying an air rifle and then taking it back to Northern Ireland. I assume that in a week or two that person would have a policeman calling upon him to ask when he was applying for a firearms certificate.
If that is not the case, a loophole is being opened through which a coach and four could be driven. Of course the Chief Constable in those circumstances would say "Give up this gun or we will take away your firearms certificate". Therefore, an individual could be pressurised, or, to put it more bluntly, blackmailed, by the police into giving up a weapon which the police did not wish him to have.
It is clear that I have not changed my mind about firearms. I hope that before this Parliament ends someone will have the sense to go in depth into the whole question of firearms legislation, not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, so that eventually more sensible laws prevail. In the short term, I ask the Minister to arrange for an early reprint of the 1969 Act as amended. Could he also arrange to make it available to hon. Members at a relatively early date?

5.50 a.m.

Mr. John Farr: To a certain extent I follow what the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross) has said. On both sides of the House we all look forward with eagerness to the day when firearms controls in Northern Ireland are considerably relaxed. I do not think that we have a relaxed situation in Great Britain. Many of us think that the position in Great Britain is subject to too much control from the police and Home Office. Nevertheless, it is not nearly so difficult and curtailed as it is in Northern Ireland.
I generally do not have many faults to find with the order, especially after the opening remarks of the Minister, which were very pleasing in respect of the fee for visitors. I should like to make a couple of points about the availability of the Firearms Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 which this order amends. The Act was not available in the House of Commons Library last Wednesday. I think that I eventually got a copy of it on Thursday night. I gather that it had come straight from Belfast. Unfortunately, it does not incorporate the amendments which have been made since it was enacted. It is, therefore, difficult to follow. Before we can deal with the order with any confidence, we need the 1959 Act available for reference purposes.
The hon. Member for Londonderry spoke of how the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland is supposed to deal with this complicated Act. There are over 50 sections in the Act, which has been altered many times since it was passed. Surely there must be available for the Chief Constable some form of guidance notes regarding the interpretation of the Act. I have reason to believe that some such document is available to him. If so, I ask my hon. Friend whether such guidance notes could be made available to hon. Members. It would help us a great deal.
Article 3 deals entirely with the transfer of certain functions under the 1969 Act from chief superintendents to the Chief Constable. The explanatory note says that this is being done for centralisation purposes, for convenience. There are no fewer than 60 or 70 functions which, I think, are carried out perfectly well by chief superintendents but which will be


carried out by the Chief Constable if the order is carried. These include some relatively minor matters concerning firearms law about which the man on the spot must know more than the Chief Constable. These will be taken out of the hands of the local man and placed in the hands of the Chief Constable. I do not think that that is altogether good.
Some parts of the order are sound. Obviously some centralisation is needed. Many of these 60 or 70 changes are right, in my view. However, it is surely not right to remove from the hands of the chief superintendent the power, for instance, to approve an application concerning a firearms dealer's premises and licence. Whether it is taken in the name of the Chief Constable or not, the decision of the Chief Constable will be made on the advice received from the local man on the spot, who will probably delegate it to the sergeant.
It seems to me that there is a lot of unnecessary centralisation here. It is known, in Northern Ireland, to the cost of users of firearms for recreational purposes, that the procedures take a long time to be completed, and I can see nothing but a lengthening of the procedures by the removal of decision-making from the chief superintendent and carrying it forward to the Chief Constable.
I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who presented the order in such an able way, refer to article 4, under which overseas visitors will be allowed to enter Northern Ireland and obtain a firearms certificate without expense. This has long been a pressing need because visitors have been paying £14 or £15 to come in, and the tragedy is that this has affected tourism and visiting shooting parties for competitions. In the Republic of Ireland a foreign visitor does not have to pay for a certificate. He receives a pink slip and that sees him through for a week's or a fortnight's use of his firearm. In Northern Ireland a full certificate has been required, and I congratulate my hon. Friend and all concerned who have listened to the wishes of people in Northern Ireland in this respect and made this necessary change.
I am glad to read of the arrangements in article 5 for making ammunition available to competitors who wish to use

it in various competitions in Northern Ireland. The Province has been at a disadvantage compared with the Republic of Ireland and, indeed, with mainland Great Britain, and as a result has been losing both tourism and trade.
With those one or two reservations, I welcome the order.

5.57 a.m.

Rev. Ian Paisley: I join in the general welcome that has been given to the order, and I am glad that, in presenting it, the Minister made it clear that people entering the country with a firearm will have a certificate issued to them free. There has been a strong lobby from the sporting people in Northern Ireland on these various matters, and I am glad that the Minister has taken on board what has been put to him. I am pleased that if no certificate is required in Great Britain for airguns or air weapons, these weapons can be brought into Northern Ireland for sporting purposes.
I should like the Minister to explain the reason for the delegation of all this authority to the Chief Constable. As a matter of practice, this is what has been happening in Northern Ireland, and I cannot understand why in this order all this power is given to the Chief Constable, bearing in mind that he has already taken the power and has been exercising it.
Has the provision about the Police Authority being able to purchase and acquire firearms anything to do with the deal that is going on between it and the United States? I understand that half the allotment of arms has been purchased by the Police Authority but that the second half has been held up and a Congressional committee is now meeting to see how the Police Authority had power to purchase arm on behalf of the Government. Perhaps the Minister would help us on that matter. Is that why this power is legally to be put beyond the scope of the Police Authority?

With those general remarks, I welcome the order.

6 a.m.

Mr. Goodhart: I am grateful to the hon. Members for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and for Londonderry (Mr.


Ross) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) for the general welcome they have given to this order and to the care which the Department has taken in trying to ascertain the wishes of local organisations and individuals. I am glad that we have been able to meet those local views.
I am sorry that we are not able to meet entirely the views of the hon. Member for Londonderry. This is a straightening-out measure. The suggestions of the hon. Member go far beyond straightening out. I suspect that we would not have introduced the order at this time if we had not been contemplating a consolidation measure at an early date. It is the imminence of that consolidation measure that makes me think that it would be impractical to reprint the 1969 legislation with all the amendments. It will all be brought up to date soon.
I can tell the hon. Member for Londonderry that the repeal of section 13(a) of the original Act and its replacement was done, in part, to meet the problem of farmers on the border and also to allow people travelling through Great Britain to Northern Ireland to bring their firearms with them since no similar provision exists in Great Britain. I do not believe that the reference to the Police Authority has anything to do with the outburst of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington.. I have no reason to believe that the American Government are not going forward with the full sale of that order.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft Firearms (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979, which was laid before the House on 3 July, be approved.

MEMBERS' INTERESTS

Motion made,
That Mr. Robert Adley, Mr. Joe Ashton, Mr. Andrew Bennett, Mr. R. B. Cant, Mr. Geoffrey Dodsworth, Mr. Tony Durant, Sir Nigel Fisher, Mr. Percy Grieve, Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith, Mr. David Madel, Mr. Charles R. Morris, Mr. Arthur Palmer, and Mr. Frederick Willey, be members of the Select Committee on Members' Interests.—[Mr. MacGregor.]

Hon Members: Object.

PIGS (AUJESKY'S DISEASE)

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. MacGregor.]

6.3 a.m.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: At this early hour I draw to the House's attention a problem that is afflicting my constituency, namely, the considerable increase in Aujesky's disease among pigs. It may be thought that this is a matter that will affect only those who produce pigs, but in a constituency like mine, where a large proportion of the pork and bacon of this country is produced, the damage that this disease can cause to the pig herd will not only affect farming constituents but will result in major damage to housewives and those wishing to eat the products of the Eye constituency.
Pseudo-rabies, which is the word I prefer to the curious name of an otherwise unknown Viennese doctor, threatens every family that buys pork or enjoys bacon. In the middle of my constituency, in the so-called Rishangles triangle, Aujesky's disease has become a major problem. It is concentrated there, but there are also outbreaks at the moment in Humberside and in Avon. I believe that it is right for us to consider this matter with great seriousness, if only because of the considerable increase in the incidence of the disease. It has reached epidemic proportions in Holland, France, Belgium and the United States of America.
In each case, there were very few incidents of the disease. Year by year, a small number of outbreaks would be reported, and it was almost by surprise that suddenly the disease jumped from the small number of outbreaks to become a major epidemic. Therefore, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept from me that it is not reasonable to suggest that we can dismiss the problem of Aujesky's disease merely by saying that we do not have many outbreaks so far. Already, in fact in the first seven months of this year, we are only two outbreaks short of the largest number that Britain has known in the past. The pattern of the disease is becoming suspiciously like the pattern experienced in other countries where the warning signs were


ignored and where now pseudo-rabies is endemic.
The reason why the disease is so dangerous is its effect on the pigs themselves. Up to 80 per cent. of small pigs die when they contract the disease. The sows abort and produce stillborn pigs, and the disease erupts again and again. It is not the most unpleasant disease to which pigs are heir, but it can spread to other animals. Cows can get it, and there is evidence that the strain becomes more virulent. It is now clearly able to be passed from cow to cow and then back into the pig herd.
In case we underestimate the effect of the disease, it is worth saying how particularly unpleasant it is when cattle catch it. It begins with persistent licking, rubbing and scratching of parts of the hind quarters, and suddenly this becomes more and more intense until the area becomes bald and then bleeds because the itching is so considerable. Then bellowing, salivation and stamping take place as for 24 hours the animal becomes more and more distressed until finally it is unable to rise and paralysis sets in. Death preceded by convulsions will be another 12 or 24 hours away.
This situation is one which none of us would like to see extended, and I am sure that there are many who are not particularly concerned with the problems of agriculture who must understand that this is a disease which can be caught by dogs and cats and that, if they get it, they, too, are affected very seriously. They exhibit the same signs of intense irritation, the moaning, the groaning and the screams which are observed.
That is why I hope that I shall be allowed to use the expression "pseudo-rabies". I know that it is not a favourite word in the Ministry, because it reminds us of a specific problem which is that it is a disease which, if it were to become endemic, would make it increasingly difficult to enforce our rabies laws.
We are comparing ourselves with other nations which already have rabies and are therefore perhaps not so subject to the problem which I wish to highlight. Those are nations where, because of the presence of rabies, the fact that occasionally dogs

and cats catch pseudo-rabies is not so dangerous.
We are concerned to keep out rabies and we must be careful not to allow a disease which mimics it to take more widespread hold. If dogs caught pseudo-rabies, it would be some time before laboratory tests showed that it was this relatively less dangerous disease which, apart from a few examples in the Far East, has not been known to have been passed on to men. If we do not face this issue now, we may find it more difficult in future to protect the nation from rabies itself and one of two dangers will arise. First, a rabies scare may be caused by a dog with this disease. Second, we may ignore real rabies, thinking that it is merely one of the side effects of the continued march of pseudo-rabies in our pig herd.
I sought this debate primarily because of the danger to our pig herd. The cost will be considerable. In 1977, Aujesky's disease cost the United States $25 million. Holland estimates that it lost £3 million in the first half of 1976 because of the way in which what seemed a relatively unimportant disease suddenly erupted into an epidemic.
There are three dangerous "Es" involved. The first is escalation. It is no good saying that, because the danger is not as widespread as in France, Belgium and Holland, we can wait. I hope that the Minister will reconsider the reply which he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stainton), who, like my other neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), is concerned with me in this matter. The Minister said that, after the disease had been made unviable, there would be all sorts of data from serological surveys and that, before the end of the year, the Government would be able to determine the appropriate action. But at the end of the year, I believe, the Government will be in no position to decide what will be appropriate. The disease may have taken such hold that we shall be in the same position as our competitors in Holland.
The second danger is the result of that escalation, that the disease may become endemic, dashing the hopes of many of


our best breeders. Already one of the major breeders in Suffolk whose products are sent throughout the world and who bears perhaps the best-known name in the pig industry has had three outbreaks in his herds. That means considerable damage not only to him but to the British breeding stock.
The third dangerous "E" is the danger of extension. Once the disease has become endemic, we may follow the pattern of the United States, where the disease has extended into more and more virulent strains.
The House will not wish at this hour to hear a detailed description of what the disease may do when it reaches the virulent stage that it has reached in some parts of the world. However, the matter is now so serious that the Government must act, and act quickly. Ideally they should adopt a national eradication policy, with slaughter and full compensation for affected herds.
I accept that within the constraints of Government spending, which I support,—the sensible policies to trim our coat according to our cloth—the ideal method is too expensive. That is why I suggest that we should accept the alternative, compromise solution. There should be a local designation of infected areas. My hon. Friends the Members for Bridlington (Mr. Townend) and for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) will agree that the most important areas are in Suffolk, Humberside and, perhaps, Avon. Those areas should be designated as infected areas. On notification, the herd should be tested and the reactors slaughtered.
There would have to be a compensation scheme for the slaughtered reactors and the strictest prohibition of movement. A perusal of the work of Basinger or of anyone else who has studied the disease leads one to believe that we know too little about it. It is difficult to see how one can cut into the cycle of pseudo-rabies. The best we can do is to stop movement. That is the only way, because there must be direct contact for the disease to spread.
If we can concentrate the disease in those areas which are unlucky enough to be involved—the Rishangles triangle, the Humberside and Avon regions—we can do something to avoid the catastrophe

that would occur if the disease were allowed to spread.
This would be a low-cost scheme. If the Minister asked what would be given up to pay for such a scheme, I should say that the industry would be prepared to reconsider the special subsidies for pigs in Northern Ireland. Perhaps there is a possibility of saving the cost of such a scheme through those subsidies. If the Minister were to suggest a scheme to eradicate the disease, he could go to the industry—even in its present parlous state—and find some support and help towards the cost. If action is not taken, the disease will become endemic. Rabies will be harder to stop. Britain will lose large sums. The pig industry, which is already depressed, will take another and severe loss. We shall lose a major export in our breeding stock and the housewife will pay more for her pork and bacon.
Action should be taken quickly. If the Minister cannot give me assurances, I hope that he will promise to examine the problem and come to the aid of my constituents who are determined to continue to serve the housewife by producing the highest-quality pork and bacon in the world.

6.20 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Jerry Wiggin): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Gummer) for raising this matter, and I think that it is some measure of the importance which both he and I attach to it that we are here at the ungodly hour of 6.20 in the morning to debate the issue. From what my hon. Friend said, his concern is clear, and I hope that I can convince him that the Government share his concern and have already taken action to deal with the situation.
Perhaps I might start by putting the subject into perspective and filling in a little of the background. The disease takes its name from Dr. Aujesky of Hungary, who first recognised it in 1902. It was first seen in the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland in 1939 and in England in 1961, although I am happy to say that it has never been identified in Scotland. It is a viral disease and the natural host is the pig, but other species can become infected, invariably with fatal results.
In pigs the principal effects of the disease are deaths in piglets and abortions in sows, though in this country it does not appear to cause harm in fattening herds. Usually it is immediately apparent when the disease has struck, but identifying it from other diseases needs laboratory tests. It appears that occasionally the infection can exist in a herd without showing any obvious symptoms, and that is one of the reasons for the surveys which we are undertaking, which I shall describe later.
I regret that, in giving a title to his debate, my hon. Friend has used the term pseudo-rabies, since this is both false and misleading. Aujesky's disease belongs to an entirely different group of viruses from that of rabies and the two conditions have few similarities. The Ministry's records show that since 1967 there have been only five cases of Aujesky's disease in hunt kennels and these were directly due to the feeding of infected pig carcases, while some five farm dogs and a number of farm cats have succumbed to the disease on premises where the pigs were infected. There has been no other evidence of the disease in dogs and cats, and pet owners have no cause for alarm.
Cattle, apparently, can contract the disease, and they invariably die very rapidly, within about two days. They are not important in spreading the disease and they do not produce viruses to pass on. There has been only one case of Aujesky's disease in cattle in Great Britain in the past 10 years.
As my hon. Friend has suggested, the simplest course would be to adopt a slaughter policy for infected herds, which, one hopes, would eradicate the disease from the country. I understand why he advocates this and why there are those in the pig industry who would wish us to do the same. However, the House will appreciate that it would be an extremely costly undertaking, and it is right that the most careful consideration be given before we embark on such a programme. If we adopted that policy, we should be the first country in the world to do so, and we should have to be sure that we knew enough about the prevalence and nature of the disease, how it spreads and how it persisted in pig herds to ensure that we should be successful.
Another course would be to continue with the existing policy under which the

control of the disease is left to the industry, helped by veterinary advice and assistance with tests. This policy has meant that several owners have been able to eradicate the disease from their herds and have subsequently remained free from infection. I believe that a similar policy is having success in Denmark.

Mr. Gummer: I am sure that that is helpful where owners eradicate the disease and then find themselves free, but will my hon. Friend agree that there have been a number of cases—two of the most important having been in my constituency—where after most stringent eradication measures the disease has been found to return to the herds, in one case within six months and in another within two years? In those circumstances, is it not necessary to have a wider scheme than the course which we pursue at present, which is merely to leave it to the individual owner to make the decisions for himself, and his neighbours may well find reinfection?

Mr. Wiggin: If my hon. Friend will bear with me a moment or two, I shall deal with that and make some suggestions. He will recall that I was dealing with the course where the owner himself should deal with the matter, helped by veterinary advice, and assistance with tests.
I recognise, however, that there are one or two areas in the country where there are concentrations of infected herds and action by individual farmers may not be so effective.
The third course open is vaccination. My veterinary officers are considering the pros and cons of such a policy and have visited other countries to assess the quality of vaccine production and the protection that it offers. I should emphasise, however, that no plans have been formulated to introduce a vaccination policy, but it is surely right that this course should be properly considered and evaluated. I am aware of some apprehension that vaccines might mask the disease and allow greater dissemination which would ultimately impede the eradication of the disease, but I do not necessarily share these views, although I assure the House that they will be fully considered before the Government reach a decision.
In a number of instances in recent months, outbreaks of the disease have


given rise to considerable and wide concern. The reintroduction of the disease into a well-known herd where the owner had followed the veterinary service's advice was one such case and another was where an elite herd of Large White pigs with a substantial trade in breeding animals in this country and Europe suffered similarly. I think that that is probably the herd to which my hon. Friend was referring. I have the deepest sympathy for these and other owners of infected herds, not only because of the financial losses which they have suffered but because of the years of hard work which have been wiped out.
In spite of these unfortunate outbreaks, at present the disease does not look to be "taking off" in the way that it has in other countries, especially Holland.
It is important that I introduce a few statistics to give some background to the Government's point of view. Since 1961, when the disease was first known to exist in Great Britain, the highest number of outbreaks in any year was 16, in 1977. There were nine in 1978 and so far this year there have been 11. Since 1961 there have been something over a total of 100 outbreaks. It might help to put the matter in proportion if we compare these figures with Holland, where, for a decade or more before the disease "exploded", the rate of outbreaks was between 200 and 300 a year, perhaps because the disease there was of a more virulent form.
The Government fully recognise that there is no room for complacency. We know that there is a residual infection in some of the herds where the disease has been reported in the past, and it is to be expected that it is present in some other herds where it has not been diagnosed or reported.
For these reasons, as the Government announced the other day, it has been decided to make the disease notifiable. By this order, which will cover both new outbreaks and those which have continued to smoulder, we shall be able to add to the information which we already possess, as a result of the surveillance undertaken on a continuing basis over the years by the veterinary service. I am bound to say that, given the concern of the industry, I regret that our predeces-

sors did not seek to make the disease notifiable, and I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate the rapid response by the new Government when the problem was placed before my right hon. Friend. We hope that the new arrangements will produce new and prompt information about the way that the disease is moving.
My hon. Friend will also be pleased to note that extensive surveys are to be carried out by the veterinary service during the remainder of this year. We shall be sampling representative herds from the whole of the country and examining in somewhat greater detail certain parts of the pig population. As time is pressing, I hope that my hon. Friend will agree to my informing him by letter of the precise particulars. In all, the testing programme will cover some 25,000 pigs from 2,500 herds. The results will be available on a month-by-month basis, and this major commitment of manpower will mean that by the end of the year we shall be well placed to take a much more comprehensive view.
For that reason, my hon. Friend's suggestion about restricted areas would be premature. Without the information from the survey, we might, for example, designate a restricted area that did not cover a number of herds that should have been included. It is to gain such information that we are proceeding as I have described.
My hon. Friend is concerned about a number of more specific points, and I shall reply to some of these. I have already referred to the important breeding herd where the disease has occurred in his constituency and about which he has written to my right hon. Friend the Minister. Important as that is, that outbreak does not fundamentally affect the situation. The overal picture presented by the disease in this country is not altered.
My hon. Friend has expressed disquiet that we shall follow Holland, Belgium and France in experiencing a flare-up of the disease, and that because of our geographical situation we are in a favourable situation to prevent the disease from becoming endemic. The figures that I have given about the general incidence of the disease, and the distinction to be drawn between the situation in Holland


and here, will, I hope have provided some reassurance.
Another argument which has been adduced is that if we eradicated the disease our breeding stock would be enhanced in value for export. All I would say at this stage is that it is difficult to judge whether, at some future date, the value of our breeding stock would be significantly enhanced by an eradication policy, or whether the same benefit and assurance could not be derived more cheaply by testing individual animals to be exported. Aujesky's disease is widespread throughout Europe and most of the world and is not a factor of great significance in international trade.
Having made those points, I should like to emphasise once again that the Government are extremely concerned about this issue and I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that we have responded sensibly to the points that he and other hon. Members have made to us about the situation. The harsh realities of animal diseases and their economic costs will always be with the industry, as I am sure he recognises. When using public money for eradication schemes, the Government must be absolutely certain that the approach is both correct and cost-effective, and without the in-

formation which we are now seeking no such decision could be taken.
I emphasise once again our great concern about this matter, and I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that the actions we have taken, although not going as far as he would wish, demonstrate quite clearly that we are not prepared to let this matter rest and will, of course, remain open-minded about our ultimate conclusions.
My hon. Friend and his constituents would, I am sure, be rightly critical of us if we were to spend taxpayers' money in a way that did not seem to give good value, although of course this sort of crude equation has to be tempered with common sense and compassion in all such matters of animal health. I hope that he will feel that our substantial response shows how seriously we have taken this matter, and within a few months, certainly by the end of the year, we shall be much better placed to assess the situation. The Government are keen to do everything possible to help the industry in its various problems. This one is no exception.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Seven o'clock a.m.